11 tweets · January 2023 · 30 likes · 0 retweets · read on Twitter
@utotranslucence yesss—with one small change: "an explanation", not "the explanation" multiple explanations are always possible and often the only one someone has available in which they could have prevented, is one that implies they're an idiot or something else they rightly refuse to accept
@utotranslucence thus if someone seems to be refusing to take responsibility, a good strategy is to come up with explanations that both empower them with a move they could make and ALSO are acceptable to them on other levels
@utotranslucence the blame game is essentially a game of fighting over explanations, one where where one person could & should have prevented, the other where the other. in most situations, BOTH can be empowered by an explanation that simultaneously highlights moves available from each position
@utotranslucence thus what keeps the blame game going is largely the failure to devise such a both/and explanation which afaict is partially just a lack of practice at doing so, but also blocked by an assumption or fear that it doesn't exist & thus in self-preservation one must fight to not lose
@utotranslucence part of why people reject explanations is because they don't want to be blamed but also part of why they reject explanations is that the explanations don't incorporate all of the subtle sensibleness of everything they DID do and it must have made sense:
@utotranslucence actually, wait. those are the same thing. blame, as I understand it, is a type of explanation that doesn't incorporate the sense that what someone did made, and says they should have done something different,
@utotranslucence which is profoundly different from what you're talking about: an empowering explanation that highlights a degree of freedom they hadn't noticed while also respecting that they genuinely didn't notice it or that they had some other consideration that made it seem unworkable
@utotranslucence the empowerment ofc is in some potential future similar situation. the past is as it is and in some sense truly couldn't have gone any differently and is only real when it is in contact with the one to whom this time actually made sense = juxtaposition, in the coherence sense
@utotranslucence in a funny way, peoples' defensiveness against explanations that are missing the sensibleness of their actions... are SO close to being glorious gospel of wisdom but since they tend to counter-blame (ie deny *others* perspectives/sensibility), they fail
@utotranslucence instead, what's needed, afaict, is something like this process 👇
@utotranslucence start by affirming the sensibility of your own perspective, to yourself I did this today once I realized I was being defensive. when I did, I noticed things came up to say, but I held my tongue and just kept hearing myself thoroughly until I felt curious (took a few minutes)