Conversation

There’s a theory that the ability to have painful conversations in large groups is some sort of valuable and advanced skill that we must practice. I submit that this skill is psychological science fiction. No group larger than 5 people has ever had such a conversation.
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Above 5 people, any overture to start such a conversation, no matter how hard you try to be kind, will be an accusation of moral crimes leveled against an abstract archetype that will result in polarized derp based identifying with/against that archetype.
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Try not to identify strongly with any archetype of n > 5, even if you can’t escape the consequences of such identification on the part of others. Try to base any response on an identification of the counter-party with a < 5 group. Small enough to name all members.
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This thread prompted by yet another profoundly futile outrage cycle triggered by yet another attempt to spark such a conversation. I won’t link to it. But it’s not enough to starve such things of attention. You need alternative ways to talk about those things.
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I propose a “Rule of 5” model. Stop criticizing or holding accountable large abstract classes of people. And stop trying to make an “example” of members of the class, no matter how egregious. Instead pick on 5 named people, living or dead.
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Replying to
You started this thread talking about painful conversations *with and among* large groups and now you are talking about criticizing abstract classes - I think these are very different scenarios (and the former is definitely real)
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