Comment on Why can't I argue against claims of suffering?
MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 7 months ago
I don’t know that I understand the question. Whose claims of suffering are we talking about?
Ok here’s an example.
Bob : “When I put on a dress people look at me funny, which is hurtful.”
Rob : “Meh, you don’t look very hurt to me.”
BAM. Rob has argued against Bob’s suffering, which is a sin. And now everybody will justifiably hate on you. Granted.
But why, exactly? What’s the logic here? Why does suffering get excepted from analysis?
What’s the point of the analysis? It doesn’t seem needed in any way in the example you gave.
This isn’t even really an “argument”, it seems like Rob is being judgemental for no real reason
No one asked for his opinion. No one put anything up for debate. It seems like he’s just being a dick to his friend.
Perhaps Rob should try having a bit more empathy?
You don’t know. Maybe Rob looks at Bob and it appears that Bob is having the time of his life. You don’t know. You have zero evidence.
And there you go. On zero evidence you brand Rob a dick.
Isn’t that interesting?
I based it on the information that you provided their buddy.
This seems more like you’re just airing your personal grievances because someone didn’t want to put up with your neckbeardy douchiness
Someone refusing to put up with your abuse does not mean you’re being “oppressed” dude
Stop being such a whiney baby about it and move on
I think you’re suffering from thinking people care that much about what you have said. Your comments are not so important that they matter to anyone.
You dare to minimize my suffering?
Please don’t take this comment as validation to your own personal issues
No, she’s giving you good advice and an intro to Stoic philosophy. Your suffering comes not from what others say to you, but from your perception of their words. You can’t control what others say or do, so to avoid suffering you must adjust your own perceptions.
What does Rob know about Bob better than Bob knows themself? You don’t have to look outwardly hurt for it to be true. Rob should mind their own business. It’s not a “sin”, it’s just inconsiderate. If Rob weren’t a jerk they would take Bob’s word for it and say “that sucks” despite their judgement.
You cannot trust your eyes. You must trust the words.
Now that is an interesting assertion.
That’s not what they said, you’re presenting a false dichotomy. The truth is, in determining what another person feels, if you refuse to trust their words, then you can trust nothing. Yes, there are signals that hint at things that might lay below, but you cannot tell someone what their inner thoughts are better than they themselves.
In that vein, something often said of those who have killed themselves is “but I saw them yesterday and they looked so happy!” By your logic, if they looked happy they must have been happy, and just felt like ending it one day for no real reason.
You don’t have to believe their words. But arguing against their claim of suffering is where the line is crossed of being a dick about it or being a friend there to listen to them.
Either way your eyes don’t see what is inside someone’s mind, so why are you placing so much trust in their judgement? Why does even it matter, and why do you feel the need to deny something you can’t prove anyway? Just want to argue?
To answer your original question, it’s because it makes you insufferable.
Rob's is assuming he 1) sees everything, 2).didn't or can't miss anything important, and 3) that his interpretation is correct.
That's why it's arrogant and stupid and people get annoyed.
Seriously, have you never been upset or hurt and had someone try to tell you that you're not?
Rob is simply using his powers of observation. Surely you are familiar.
What in the world is Rob actually tangibly observing? The inside of Bob’s brain? Is Bob wearing a sign that says “my current emotion: happy & content”? The point stands that Rob does not see everything and isn’t necessarily correct about what he thinks he sees.
The logic is that you don’t get to decide how other people feel. It’s not hard.
You can logically say these things (l although it would still make you an asshole):
I don’t care that you suffer
I believe you are exaggerating your suffering to gain an advantage
You deserve your suffering
Etc.
But you can not tell people how or what they feel since that’s inherently subjective.
It’s really not hard.
Also, if you get into these conversation often, you really ought to look in the mirror. It’s a sure sign of MAJOR assholery.
So don’t trust your eyes, trust the words instead, because the price of misjudgment is too great to risk.
Interesting. We could generate axioms that way.
This misunderstands the premise. You cannot intuit someone's subjective experience of reality because it is impossible for you to experience their experience of reality. You have only what they're able to explain to you.
To come at this from the other direction, if a friend says to you "I'm having a good day" and does not appear obviously distressed, how could you judge the relative goodness of their day or if it was actually good at all?
What? No?
Dude, you are a huge dick.
Do you have some reason to think they’re not suffering? That they’re feigning suffering to manipulate you or something? If not, don’t be a dick and tell them they’re not. That’s basically gaslighting.
Imagine going to the doctor and saying you’ve been having terrible headaches and the doctor’s response is “I don’t think you’re having headaches.”
No one can prove they’re actually having any particular feeling. But everyone has feelings constantly. If they’re saying they feel a certain way, their assertion is automatically more valid than your denial. You don’t live in their head. They do.
People sometimes feel a certain way for no apparent reason. (Depression, for instance, is sometimes idiopathic.) But it’s not as if people aren’t really having feelings. And you have no basis on which to tell them they’re not. Nor that their feelings are baseless (or for that matter not baseless.)
If someone says they feel a certain way, there’s usually no constructive benefit that can come from denying that they even have those feelings.
I personally suspect that in most cases even those who use their own feelings to manipulate others (folks suffering from “cluster B” personality disorders, for instance) generally are still subjectively having the feelings they use to manipulate. If they say “you hurt me deeply” because you set a reasonable boundary or some such, it’s probably the case that they do indeed feel “deeply hurt” even if they are using that feeling as a weapon against you. (And, again, don’t be assuming they are unless you’ve got good reason to.) Denying that they feel that way is a) probably strictly false and b) completely unconstructive even if you are (in some sense) correct. Better would be to work out a solution/compromise that works even in the presence of those feelings. (And in extreme situations, it can theoretically be best to, for instance, cut off all contact with a manipulative person. But even in that case, I don’t really see how denying the manipulative person’s feelings could be helpful.)
All that said, when it comes to manipulative people, I can understand the impulse to deny their feelings. It’s cathartic in a really unhelpful vindictive kind of way. But still, it’s unhelpful.
But I think I’ve gone way off on a tangent here. You’re not asking about manipulative people so far as I can tell. The example you gave was just transphobic conspiracy-theory-level bullshit that you’re trying to pass off as somehow lOgIcAl.
Assume that Rob is not insane and can read a person.
I read all sorts of things from people all the time and can often overthink the results or have missed something else I could've read that would've created more context, but I wasn't there to see, or perhaps, with time, I read and then forgot.
Basically, I think you'd then need to go down another rabbit hole of figuring out how good Rob actually is at reading people before his testimony is really worth all that much, because while Bob could lie about his feelings, Rob could lie about how he's interpreting Bob, dismantling the efficacy of his callout, and even if Rob were honest it wouldn't really prove anything. Just that Rob doesn't think Bob is being honest, so you'd just be arguing eternally until Bob somehow lets slip his mask, under the assumption he is actually lying, at which point you prove Bob is a liar who likes attention.
But in the majority times that you'd be wrong, or you wouldn't get the mask to slip, you'd just prove yourself an asshole, and would progressively lose friends/popular trust and credibility until arguing anyone's true feelings wouldn't be a truly valid option any longer, since no one would want to believe you, even if you were right due to being more often incorrect.
Basically, if you wanted to spend your time/have some sort of hobby or job where you attempted to force people to be honest about things they might lie about for emotional, popular, or financial reward, you'd have to go about it in a non confrontational investigative way, because you'd otherwise destroy your own opinion's worth or career long before it would get the public to change beliefs.
So you could argue claims of suffering, but there'd only be two reasons to do so, to be a dick, or to prove they were lying for their own gain, and the first isn't worth discussing, while the second is better served through less direct means.
cameron_vale@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I am addressing the general case. Which appears to be ubiquitous but I could be wrong.
There might be a case where questioning suffering is popularly allowed. It might get kinda science fictiony tho.