i get into arguments from time to time, and there’s a certain type of confusion i keep running into among articulate posters, a disconnect that keeps them from engaging with what i’m saying. my intentions are inferred and preempted, implications flattened out alongside direct statements
i want to call this something like subtext suffocation. i think it arise from a half-literacy, an abortive gesture toward critical thinking.
see, i often make heavy use of vibes and implicit meaning in my wording. and for anyone who’s been around the block with discourse, you’ve seen posters like this before. they use subtext as a cloak, they hide behind “but i didn’t say that!” as a shield.
i’m not like that. as a writer, i’m well acquainted with connotation and interpretation. i speak precisely, and “i didn’t say that” is a tool i use expressively.
when people exhume the unmeant implications of my words, i’m not surprised, and i’m not frustrated that they foiled my stealth. i’m just disappointed. when they respond to the inferred version of my post, they are committing a discursive fallacy that makes a mess of my attempts at any deeper intellectual intercourse. but i suppose crapping on the chessboard is one way to stop me from moving pieces when you aren’t looking.
i call this subtext suffocation, because the way so many have learned to deal with trolls and bad actors is to take implications seriously, to hold people accountable for how their words can reasonably be interpreted. “but i didn’t say that” gets met with an (implicit!) “c’mon, i’m not stupid, what else could this mean?”
the shadows of the image are sharpened until all clarity disappears, and the distinctions between what is and what may be are suffocated by a undiscerning exasperation.
(i had an argument, recently, where someone demanded i speak more carefully, write defensively against misinterpretation. it is ironic that this really results in the opposite, a kind of careless redundancy, layered to soften and baffle. it keeps anyone from getting the wrong idea — and it keeps you from getting to the point.)
this is more of a vent post than an essay — people aren’t going to stop doing this, and clearly i need to change my approach or make peace with being misunderstood by an increasingly illiterate world.
but the logician in me just wants to grab you by the shoulders and make you stare at the formulas. if i argue “P” and “P entails Q”, then there are valid rebuttals — “not P” or “not Q” or “not (P entails Q)”. if “P entails Q” merely suggests “R”, then “not R” is not a valid rebuttal! it’s a non sequitur! you must assert “(P entails Q) does not entail R”, or you aren’t discoursing with the syllogism at all. stop arguing with the post you constructed in your head!
i guess this really just boils down to “so you hate waffles” in fancier words, doesn’t it?