Agree. I suspect that people who love to remind us of exceptions aren’t really concerned about the exceptions; they just want to demonstrate that they are more enlightened than the rest of us. It’s virtue signaling. If we could stop putting ourselves on the pedestal and showing off our enlightenment, then we could begin to actually listen and communicate. It all comes down to pride.
For me it’s more of a that’s-how-my-brain-works thing. I wish I didn’t always see the exceptions. Asperger’s? TBI? Vaccine/toxic accumulation? OCD tendencies? I don’t know— I’m just a literal thinker.
Holy shit, reading this was cathartic. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of communication today. The preemptive (and often futile) statements people make reminding their audience of what should just be assumed when presenting any kind of argument is particularly exhausting. Every conversation or presentation on an issue inevitably gets bogged down in these braindead preambles.
I wish there was a way to filter these idiots out somehow; normally I’d advocate for the creation of some way to ruthlessly mock these people, but I reckon there are too few of us and too many of them for this to get off the ground and be effective.
If this is indeed a simple matter of intelligence, then this problem really was inevitable once the internet expanded to include more and more of society — inevitably the idiots will outnumber the non-idiots and public discourse will descend to the level of the majority. Worse yet, because the internet allows idiots to network with one another (creating a kind of positive feedback loop of stupidity), I believe it has emboldened them and made their behavior extra obnoxious, both online and IRL.
These idiots are who Scott Adams calls "NPCs," i.e. non-player-characters. NPCs state out loud the points that everyone else takes for granted, such as "there are always exceptions."
So true. There will always be exceptions. There will always be outliers. But we should not make policy based on outliers and exceptions. Policy should be based on normative realities, not outliers.
Here's the thing: Generalizations, even grotesque overgeneralizations and unfounded stereotypes, are allowed without caveat by the exception-obsessed interlocutors you mention, as long as the generalizations have the effect of harming or undermining the people they think do not deserve the type of defensive throat clearing, "not all", and whataboutisms that they usually deploy.
We all have blind spots in our sensitivities, and most people try to be graceful and understand as well as try to be understood. However, the hyper exception focused people are usually from a group that plays a game with language; predictably, the goal of their language is to upset what they see as traditional power structures, and protect what they see as the historically oppressed. All their word choice flows from that consideration.
I haven't seen other groups play the same language game that you describe.
This is so true and well said. I've been thinking this for awhile but you really flesh it out in a useful way. I have friends who will frequently respond to my attempts to discuss an issue and they will respond to something with "that's just a generalization". I'd really like to know what people are actually thinking when they say that. I want to ask them what the message is. I wonder if they think they're actually helping. I agree that it does appear to be an attempt at virtue signaling their more enlightened status but I also wonder if there's something else going on. I know plenty of people who are perhaps not always as verbally fluid, or not as quick on their feet with a good response, and think they can seem witty by saying something critical rather than blandly agreeing.
Man, this is so needful right now! And so well-written! I've read/liked your posts on Facebook, but just found this.
I do my best not to bend to that, but I've found myself feeling pressured to do so at times. One small incident that taught me a lot about this was when I found myself unexpectedly conflicted as a woman was walking towards the Exit door at the Post Office. My normal instinct has always been to get the door for any woman. But there was plenty of time to think, and I found myself sort of hesitating inwardly. She was young, attractive, well-dressed, and just carried herself in a very confident way, and I wondered, was this going to offend her? Was she going to see this as me saying that she NEEDED me, a man, to open the door for her?
I decided that I didn't care, and it made me angry that I'd been influenced to such a degree that I would even waver about it. It's not that I think I'm a hero for it or something, it's a small gesture, but I'm a "get-the-door-for-women" guy because I just think it's honoring to them and I can't imagine NOT doing it. So if this woman chose to be offended by my honoring her, then so be it.
So I got the door, but, to be honest, I did brace myself a little. But she thanked me profusely. She thanked me like I had just done her the biggest favor (she did have a bit of mail and stuff in her hands), and I got the feeling that it had been a while since a man had opened a door for her.
I should have known! People in everyday life aren't usually as ridiculous as what you encounter on anti-social media. That further solidified it for me. I will not give in to the cultural current of letting the fear of offending the few exceptions out there spoil things for the rest of us.
I always say we humans are on numerous bell curves of everything. Most near the mean, some nowhere near.
But if we wish bell curves just don’t exist, well we can’t identify any scientific rules for measuring or treating anything because we can’t name the mean. If we can’t name it, we can’t trace its cause or formulate its cure.
Then psychology has no rules or cures, and sociology then goes about naming a thousand things other than the mean and has never offered cures.
Only complaints, gripes and wishes for what it would like to be true.
We need to keep IN MIND, that the mind is fallible and often in conversation and other exchanges becomes habitual and competitive, rather than creative and cooperative . Much of this tendency is related to the nature of the individual.
What pops up as original thought is highly influenced by your subconscious and the life conditions that programed your subconscious without your permission.
You can come out a winner in this complex game if you have the will to NOT believe your mind. Treat it as a tool that is easily misused. A tool that has very sharp edges and is capable of injuring you. Watch it closely. Don't automatically trust it.
As usual, Zuby is 100% correct here, and is able to put into words thoughts I have floating around my head but have a hard time verbalizing.
So many conversations go this way. We obsess so much about what makes us different that we’ve lost the thread of what keeps us together.
We can have a range of “normal” without ostracizing or hyper-focusing on the exceptions. We can acknowledge and accept the “edges” without having to bend all of society to over-accommodate them.
We can have our difference and accept them as realties without having to celebrate them.
We need to be able to talk about societal norms and their overall “good” without fear of offending anyone and everyone that doesn’t fit neatly into them in every conceivable way.
This isn’t meant to offend. This is simply acknowledging a norm. And that isn’t a bad thing.
This was something I’d been thinking but wasn’t sure how to put into words. Thank you, Zuby! Excessive pedantry is definitely killing political discourse in the western world. This need to nitpick everything someone says is getting us nowhere as a culture. We need to stay on topic and stay focused on the issues that matter the most. I’ll give a couple concrete examples of what we’re talking about here. Let’s say I’m talking about chocolate 🍫 and I say, “everyone loves chocolate!” One person might respond “Hey! I’m allergic to chocolate!” Yes, I’m aware some folks might have such allergies, but the vast majority of people love it. That’s what we’re talking about here.
Let’s use a more political example. Like if I say they’re are two sexes, male and female. Someone might respond. “Hey! What about non-binary and intersex people?!” Yes, I’m aware there are a small percentage of the population that are somewhere between male and female, but they should not be classified as a sex in of themselves. Non-binary and intersex people are merely anomalies. Their existence doesn’t mean there are millions of genders. Last example, I’m talking about marriage and I say “people need to get married and have a family to be happy.” Someone might respond “Hey! I’m not married and I’m happy!” or “Hey! I don’t have kids and I’m happy!” My response would be yes, I’m aware there are a minority of people who are happy cohabitating or childless, but I’m talking about the majority of the population who find happiness, stability, fulfillment, and love in marriage and being a dad or a mom.
This piece is a good reminder to always stay focused on the substance of someone’s argument and not get caught up in minor details as we often do. Exceptions don’t matter, we are talking about the norm here. Yes, masculine women and effeminate men exist. But most men are masculine and most women are feminine. Yes, not all black children grew up without a father but a majority sadly do. Yes, the United States is not without its flaws. But it is still nonetheless a great country. We need to stop getting lost in the forest 🌳 and see the trees 🌲 clearly in front of us! This a great article very much worthy of Substack, Zuby! Thank you much for it! 🙏 In closing, I’d like to recommend some books to everyone to get educated on how we fight back against wokeness in the western world:
• The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight for Its History by Frank Furedi
• The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch
• Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, Expanded Edition by Jonathan Rauch
• The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses by Alan Charles Kor
• Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News by Bernard Goldberg
• Beaten Black and Blue: Being a Black Cop in an America Under Siege by Brandon Tatum
The obsession with creating new labels for every fringe thing is so frustrating to deal with. And the limited boxes that some try to put everyone in - we were more broad minded than this crap a few decades ago. It’s so hard to have a normal conversation with some people.
Going with the colored haired, weird clothes/tats/ piercings, screaming free Palestine, while claiming to be gender-fluid is meh-inspiring at this point. Nobody cares. Move along. None of it is particularly rebellious because it’s been normalized. Admittedly- I don’t care for the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ look some of the young women at my church have opted for either, but at least they are trying to do better than what the dominant culture offers.
These “what ifs” are highly problematic in the classroom regarding rules. As soon as you allow 1 exception, many more students ALSO claim their own personal exceptions, trying to convince the teacher why the rules don’t apply to them, either, in the name of “fairness.”
When you allow for all that, you have no time left to teach, especially if they wolfpack the teacher with their communal outrage at having to follow a rule.
Man, I want to thank you so much for this! I've been talking about this problem for more than 20 years. Somewhere in the past 40 years -- since I left school, at any rate -- schools must have stopped teaching basic logic, so that the expression of any generalization is instantly met with "what about Exception X?" The people who insist on making such objections will, however, not hesitate to make their own categorical judgments when it suits them, but seem to think that others are less competent to judge. So your generalization is not acceptable, but their is.
Agree. I suspect that people who love to remind us of exceptions aren’t really concerned about the exceptions; they just want to demonstrate that they are more enlightened than the rest of us. It’s virtue signaling. If we could stop putting ourselves on the pedestal and showing off our enlightenment, then we could begin to actually listen and communicate. It all comes down to pride.
100%
It's often a status thing.
For me it’s more of a that’s-how-my-brain-works thing. I wish I didn’t always see the exceptions. Asperger’s? TBI? Vaccine/toxic accumulation? OCD tendencies? I don’t know— I’m just a literal thinker.
Holy shit, reading this was cathartic. This is one of the most frustrating aspects of communication today. The preemptive (and often futile) statements people make reminding their audience of what should just be assumed when presenting any kind of argument is particularly exhausting. Every conversation or presentation on an issue inevitably gets bogged down in these braindead preambles.
I wish there was a way to filter these idiots out somehow; normally I’d advocate for the creation of some way to ruthlessly mock these people, but I reckon there are too few of us and too many of them for this to get off the ground and be effective.
If this is indeed a simple matter of intelligence, then this problem really was inevitable once the internet expanded to include more and more of society — inevitably the idiots will outnumber the non-idiots and public discourse will descend to the level of the majority. Worse yet, because the internet allows idiots to network with one another (creating a kind of positive feedback loop of stupidity), I believe it has emboldened them and made their behavior extra obnoxious, both online and IRL.
😂 Glad you liked the article. I can sense the frustration in your words.
These idiots are who Scott Adams calls "NPCs," i.e. non-player-characters. NPCs state out loud the points that everyone else takes for granted, such as "there are always exceptions."
So true. There will always be exceptions. There will always be outliers. But we should not make policy based on outliers and exceptions. Policy should be based on normative realities, not outliers.
Yes!
Agreed. Well said. The exception dissonance is the inclusion delusion.
Here's the thing: Generalizations, even grotesque overgeneralizations and unfounded stereotypes, are allowed without caveat by the exception-obsessed interlocutors you mention, as long as the generalizations have the effect of harming or undermining the people they think do not deserve the type of defensive throat clearing, "not all", and whataboutisms that they usually deploy.
We all have blind spots in our sensitivities, and most people try to be graceful and understand as well as try to be understood. However, the hyper exception focused people are usually from a group that plays a game with language; predictably, the goal of their language is to upset what they see as traditional power structures, and protect what they see as the historically oppressed. All their word choice flows from that consideration.
I haven't seen other groups play the same language game that you describe.
Good observation.
This is so true and well said. I've been thinking this for awhile but you really flesh it out in a useful way. I have friends who will frequently respond to my attempts to discuss an issue and they will respond to something with "that's just a generalization". I'd really like to know what people are actually thinking when they say that. I want to ask them what the message is. I wonder if they think they're actually helping. I agree that it does appear to be an attempt at virtue signaling their more enlightened status but I also wonder if there's something else going on. I know plenty of people who are perhaps not always as verbally fluid, or not as quick on their feet with a good response, and think they can seem witty by saying something critical rather than blandly agreeing.
Man, this is so needful right now! And so well-written! I've read/liked your posts on Facebook, but just found this.
I do my best not to bend to that, but I've found myself feeling pressured to do so at times. One small incident that taught me a lot about this was when I found myself unexpectedly conflicted as a woman was walking towards the Exit door at the Post Office. My normal instinct has always been to get the door for any woman. But there was plenty of time to think, and I found myself sort of hesitating inwardly. She was young, attractive, well-dressed, and just carried herself in a very confident way, and I wondered, was this going to offend her? Was she going to see this as me saying that she NEEDED me, a man, to open the door for her?
I decided that I didn't care, and it made me angry that I'd been influenced to such a degree that I would even waver about it. It's not that I think I'm a hero for it or something, it's a small gesture, but I'm a "get-the-door-for-women" guy because I just think it's honoring to them and I can't imagine NOT doing it. So if this woman chose to be offended by my honoring her, then so be it.
So I got the door, but, to be honest, I did brace myself a little. But she thanked me profusely. She thanked me like I had just done her the biggest favor (she did have a bit of mail and stuff in her hands), and I got the feeling that it had been a while since a man had opened a door for her.
I should have known! People in everyday life aren't usually as ridiculous as what you encounter on anti-social media. That further solidified it for me. I will not give in to the cultural current of letting the fear of offending the few exceptions out there spoil things for the rest of us.
Glad you liked the article and thanks for sharing a personal anecdote. It shows how these things can affect how people think, speak, and act.
I always say we humans are on numerous bell curves of everything. Most near the mean, some nowhere near.
But if we wish bell curves just don’t exist, well we can’t identify any scientific rules for measuring or treating anything because we can’t name the mean. If we can’t name it, we can’t trace its cause or formulate its cure.
Then psychology has no rules or cures, and sociology then goes about naming a thousand things other than the mean and has never offered cures.
Only complaints, gripes and wishes for what it would like to be true.
Only statistics are true.
We need to keep IN MIND, that the mind is fallible and often in conversation and other exchanges becomes habitual and competitive, rather than creative and cooperative . Much of this tendency is related to the nature of the individual.
What pops up as original thought is highly influenced by your subconscious and the life conditions that programed your subconscious without your permission.
You can come out a winner in this complex game if you have the will to NOT believe your mind. Treat it as a tool that is easily misused. A tool that has very sharp edges and is capable of injuring you. Watch it closely. Don't automatically trust it.
As usual, Zuby is 100% correct here, and is able to put into words thoughts I have floating around my head but have a hard time verbalizing.
So many conversations go this way. We obsess so much about what makes us different that we’ve lost the thread of what keeps us together.
We can have a range of “normal” without ostracizing or hyper-focusing on the exceptions. We can acknowledge and accept the “edges” without having to bend all of society to over-accommodate them.
We can have our difference and accept them as realties without having to celebrate them.
We need to be able to talk about societal norms and their overall “good” without fear of offending anyone and everyone that doesn’t fit neatly into them in every conceivable way.
This isn’t meant to offend. This is simply acknowledging a norm. And that isn’t a bad thing.
Thank you Zuby!
You're welcome. Glad it resonated.
This was something I’d been thinking but wasn’t sure how to put into words. Thank you, Zuby! Excessive pedantry is definitely killing political discourse in the western world. This need to nitpick everything someone says is getting us nowhere as a culture. We need to stay on topic and stay focused on the issues that matter the most. I’ll give a couple concrete examples of what we’re talking about here. Let’s say I’m talking about chocolate 🍫 and I say, “everyone loves chocolate!” One person might respond “Hey! I’m allergic to chocolate!” Yes, I’m aware some folks might have such allergies, but the vast majority of people love it. That’s what we’re talking about here.
Let’s use a more political example. Like if I say they’re are two sexes, male and female. Someone might respond. “Hey! What about non-binary and intersex people?!” Yes, I’m aware there are a small percentage of the population that are somewhere between male and female, but they should not be classified as a sex in of themselves. Non-binary and intersex people are merely anomalies. Their existence doesn’t mean there are millions of genders. Last example, I’m talking about marriage and I say “people need to get married and have a family to be happy.” Someone might respond “Hey! I’m not married and I’m happy!” or “Hey! I don’t have kids and I’m happy!” My response would be yes, I’m aware there are a minority of people who are happy cohabitating or childless, but I’m talking about the majority of the population who find happiness, stability, fulfillment, and love in marriage and being a dad or a mom.
This piece is a good reminder to always stay focused on the substance of someone’s argument and not get caught up in minor details as we often do. Exceptions don’t matter, we are talking about the norm here. Yes, masculine women and effeminate men exist. But most men are masculine and most women are feminine. Yes, not all black children grew up without a father but a majority sadly do. Yes, the United States is not without its flaws. But it is still nonetheless a great country. We need to stop getting lost in the forest 🌳 and see the trees 🌲 clearly in front of us! This a great article very much worthy of Substack, Zuby! Thank you much for it! 🙏 In closing, I’d like to recommend some books to everyone to get educated on how we fight back against wokeness in the western world:
• The War Against the Past: Why the West Must Fight for Its History by Frank Furedi
• The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn by Diane Ravitch
• Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, Expanded Edition by Jonathan Rauch
• The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses by Alan Charles Kor
• Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distorts the News by Bernard Goldberg
• Beaten Black and Blue: Being a Black Cop in an America Under Siege by Brandon Tatum
The obsession with creating new labels for every fringe thing is so frustrating to deal with. And the limited boxes that some try to put everyone in - we were more broad minded than this crap a few decades ago. It’s so hard to have a normal conversation with some people.
Going with the colored haired, weird clothes/tats/ piercings, screaming free Palestine, while claiming to be gender-fluid is meh-inspiring at this point. Nobody cares. Move along. None of it is particularly rebellious because it’s been normalized. Admittedly- I don’t care for the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ look some of the young women at my church have opted for either, but at least they are trying to do better than what the dominant culture offers.
Some of the kids are alright. Some, well, aren’t.
These “what ifs” are highly problematic in the classroom regarding rules. As soon as you allow 1 exception, many more students ALSO claim their own personal exceptions, trying to convince the teacher why the rules don’t apply to them, either, in the name of “fairness.”
When you allow for all that, you have no time left to teach, especially if they wolfpack the teacher with their communal outrage at having to follow a rule.
Sorry, kids. No exceptions. Moving on.
Perfect!
Outstanding!
Man, I want to thank you so much for this! I've been talking about this problem for more than 20 years. Somewhere in the past 40 years -- since I left school, at any rate -- schools must have stopped teaching basic logic, so that the expression of any generalization is instantly met with "what about Exception X?" The people who insist on making such objections will, however, not hesitate to make their own categorical judgments when it suits them, but seem to think that others are less competent to judge. So your generalization is not acceptable, but their is.
You're welcome. I'm glad you liked the article! It is a frustrating experience.