Althouse: "I’d like to hear your point of view. I also acknowledge that you are personally insulting me right now. I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted."

October 6, 2020

"I’d like to hear your point of view. I also acknowledge that you are personally insulting me right now. I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted."

"So thank you for insulting me. But now let’s declare our values and our action plan for those values and get the personalities out of the way altogether."

Said Deepak Chopra, quoted in "How to Have a Disagreement Like an Adult, According to Deepak Chopra/The longtime New Age celebrity has a working theory about how we can all get along. Your mileage may vary" (NYT). The quote is offered as something he might say in response to someone who has attacked him verbally.

I like the creamy center: "I also acknowledge that you are personally insulting me right now. I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted. So thank you for insulting me." I think the beginning — "I’d like to hear your point of view" — is a good buffer to the central part, and might keep "thank you for insulting me" from seeming too sarcastic. But I think the ending is weird and alienating — "declare our values" and "our action plan." It's so aggressively impersonal. I can see wanting to get "personalities out of the way" — to rise above the insults. But it's so coldly corporate. I feel like I'm at a crushingly boring meeting. Can't we be a little personal? Are personalities really out of the way when you swap in declarations of values and action plans or are you just demanding a form of conversation that fits your personality and puts me at a disadvantage?

40 comments:

MikeR said...: Weirdly incoherent. "I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted." I prefer the Scott Adams system: If you insult me personally, I immediately block you forever and tell you so. I will only have discussions with people willing to behave decently while they talk. Go insult someone else, or learn better.; 10/6/20, 4:27 PM
Iman said...: My favorite Deepak Chopra moment... https://youtu.be/ka--VV-_t_U; 10/6/20, 4:28 PM
tcrosse said...: Is it personally insulting to disagree?; 10/6/20, 4:30 PM
Phil 314 said...: "I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted."

Huh?; 10/6/20, 4:32 PM
jameswhy said...: If someone insults me, personally, in a conversation, I'm really not interested in discussing our values, or anything else. My wife and I adopted (admittedly in our 50s) a life motto: Non laborem propter coli. It means (based on my high school Latin) "We don't work for assholes. Also, life is too short. Not much interested in playing Deepak's game.; 10/6/20, 4:34 PM
n.n said...: Adult-like individuals prosecute witch hunts, warlock trials, and protests.

Populations follow a normal distribution centered on principles and actions. The alternative is diversity dogma advocated by the Progressive Church under its Pro-Choice, selective, opportunistic, politically congruent quasi-religion ("ethics") that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, normalizes color blocs, color quotas, and affirmative discrimination.; 10/6/20, 4:40 PM
Birkel said...: I prefer the old "I'm rubber, you're glue" response.
But his answer is solid.

The consequences of ideas, however, are usually denied by those on the Leftist Collectivist side.
It is the consequences that reveals their emptiness and ugliness.; 10/6/20, 4:41 PM
Rob said...: Up till now I've managed to stay blissfully unaware of what Deepak Chopra writes or says, but based on this article, he is a master of passive-aggressive BS. And though he is quick to accuse others of being manipulative, he turns out to be pretty manipulative himself. Okay, I'll resume my place in the Cone of Silence when it comes to Chopra.; 10/6/20, 4:42 PM
Peter Ingle said...: There is also the simple approach of, “Disagree with ideas, not with people.” In other words, bring your full personality to the table if you want to, but pour it into your idea or defense of ideas, and not into an attack of the other person. Be passionately persuasive without becoming overly argumentative, pugilistic, and inflexible. Present your point of view and be willing to listen.; 10/6/20, 4:46 PM
stonethrower said...: Improve that paragraph by deleting the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th sentences. Really, who would want to have a discussion with someone who says that stuff?; 10/6/20, 4:49 PM
The Godfather said...: If you want to shut it down, Deepak's approach may work even better than F*ck you a**hole!; 10/6/20, 4:51 PM
bagoh20 said...: I'm kind of fond of this reply when I'm insulted:

"Bludgeon my face in. Destroy me. Pull me apart like soft bread. Punch me in the...tits! Twist my head clean off and put me to sleep with your kind boots, Mr. Fancy Man."

~ Crack Fox - The Mighty Boosh; 10/6/20, 4:55 PM
Ice Nine said...: >>The longtime New Age celebrity has a working theory about how we can all get along.<<

I don't think even Mr. Groovy Pacifism said that, since he surely knows that getting along is not in the nature of humans and other animals.

His nine steps are way too much work for the frequent, casual disagreements with people who don't matter. Keep it simple - just go with walk away or, stay and argue or, stay and argue and walk away when it becomes tiresome.; 10/6/20, 5:01 PM
madAsHell said...: Nana nana! I can’t hear you!; 10/6/20, 5:01 PM
Kevin said...: I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted. So thank you for insulting me.

The first sentence negates the second.; 10/6/20, 5:04 PM
Fernandinande said...: The first sentence negates the second.

Chopra transcends western logic with "Choprawoo".; 10/6/20, 5:29 PM
Rory said...: Mortimer Adler's rules for holding a discussion:

https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=5631.0; 10/6/20, 5:35 PM
Tom said...: Early on as a safety professional on a construction site a big ole monster of a Forman was yelling at me about something. It was MF this and SOB MFer that. I wasn’t really sure why he was yelling at me but I just stood there and took it. Maybe it was pick on the college twerp day.

Finally, when he took a break to inhale I asked, “Did you get all the MF’s out? Cause, if you need to say some more, I get it.”

He looked me kinda like a confused dog, laughed his ass off, and said, “you’re gonna do fine,” and headed back to the trailer.; 10/6/20, 5:36 PM
Tom T. said...: "I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted. So thank you for insulting me."

Thoroughly passive-aggressive.; 10/6/20, 5:44 PM
Achilles said...: Sounds like a douche that has trouble arguing coherently.

The problem isn't the insults. It is that we are programmed to completely block out exterior stimulus or contrary opinion.

The mask mandates are the perfect example.

If you are symptomatic wear a mask.

People without symptoms have absolutely no need to wear masks. It is stupid. It actually provides a receptacle that increases susceptibility. People that think the mandates have some scientific basis are just being stupid.

But people want to tell other people what to do and they will cling to anything right now.

It must be humiliating having bought into all of the lies surrounding Covid-19.; 10/6/20, 5:55 PM
D.D. Driver said...: I like Frederick Douglass version:

"A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me."; 10/6/20, 5:55 PM
ccscientist said...: The best response to an insult is a witty come-back. Lady at Party: "Mr. Churchill, you are drunk", Churchill: "Yes madam but in the morning I will be sober but you will still be ugly"
--well, maybe not that witty, but you can turn it into humor (unless of course you are talking to someone woke who has no sense of humor).; 10/6/20, 6:07 PM
buwaya said...: I'm with Chopra.
Personal insults don't bother me.

That stuff is irrelevant to the higher plane of argument, that clean and sterile wasteland where the battle belongs. In that place, a sacred place, we don't exist as our animal entities. Feelings don't belong there.

What upsets me are violations of the argument space.; 10/6/20, 6:10 PM
Wince said...: So thank you for insulting me.

Reminds me of that old sign/slogan:

"Fuck you very much."; 10/6/20, 6:30 PM
Readering said...: why did he allow himself to be photographed in that setting?; 10/6/20, 6:44 PM
Banjo said...: "But it's so coldly corporate. I feel like I'm at a crushingly boring meeting."

When I was whoring for the newspapers, I interviewed him in a San Francisco hotel room. He was a polished surface beyond which nothing could be discerned.; 10/6/20, 7:01 PM
Iman said...: Audience member Q: “my question is for Deepak and the bishop... now you’ve stated before that all belief is a coverup for insecurity... right?”

Deepak Chopra: “uh-huh”

Audience member Q: “do you believe that?”

Deepak Chopra: “yes.”

Audience member: “thank you.”; 10/6/20, 7:12 PM
Kay said...: This would never work. Imagine if Deepak Chopra tried this on Drago. From that moment forward there would never be a Drago post that didn’t mention the name Deepak Chopra. It’d be “Blah blah blah Deepak Chopra, blah blah blah, Unexpectedly!” for all eternity.; 10/6/20, 7:13 PM
chuck said...: Easy to say. How does he manage in practice?; 10/6/20, 7:19 PM
Achilles said...: buwaya said...

I'm with Chopra.
Personal insults don't bother me.

That stuff is irrelevant to the higher plane of argument, that clean and sterile wasteland where the battle belongs. In that place, a sacred place, we don't exist as our animal entities. Feelings don't belong there.

What upsets me are violations of the argument space.

Social media has destroyed argument space.

It has programmed people to lash out at any negative stimuli.

The media has contributed greatly to this as well.

We have been herded into personal bubbles.; 10/6/20, 7:20 PM
rhhardin said...: If you have actual reasons for stuff you never get mad. You just explain it again in different words until you're banned anyway.; 10/6/20, 7:33 PM
Sebastian said...: "How to Have a Disagreement Like an Adult"

How is this relevant to Age of Woke?; 10/6/20, 7:49 PM
tim in vermont said...: "The problem isn't the insults. It is that we are programmed to completely block out exterior stimulus or contrary opinion.

The mask mandates are the perfect example.”

Whether you like it or not, the research shows you are wrong, several lines of research. All you have backing you up are right wing editorials on places like Instapundit that are cringe inducing levels of simplistic and misleading.

As for the subject of this post, I can’t remember the last time somebody here has successfully insulted me, though many have tried. I am with buwaya on that one, it’s just wasted bandwidth and pointless white noise that adds nothing to the debate to even try. But I admit I dish out the insults pretty regularly, I am going to try to do better, except when dealing with morons like Birkel who can’t even understand my posts and who attempts to upbraid me for stuff I never even so much as thought, much less ever said, like for instance imagining that I support shutdowns when mask mandates are a much lighter touch and probably more effective. The way they manage COVID in Japan. I actually don’t care how effective shutdowns are, because it’s irrelevant to the discussion, they are too costly.; 10/6/20, 7:57 PM
ken in tx said...: When the discussion gets to calling insulting names, my response is, "OK, it's name calling now, my turn, You're a poopy head!"; 10/6/20, 8:08 PM
Bilwick said...: "'I don’t give permission to myself to be insulted. So thank you for insulting me.'

"The first sentence negates the second."

Reminds me of my favorite Chopra story. Instapundit or Althouse posted the video clip. It was at a Chopra speaking engagement where he was taking questions from the audience. A guy gets up and asks Chopra, "You just said that every belief is a cover-up for insecurity. Right?"

Chopra says, "Yes."

The guy then asks, "Do you believe that?"

"Yes."

The guy just nods, says, "Thank you," and walks off as the audience laughs. Chopra looks stupidly at the camera, obviously not getting the joke.; 10/6/20, 10:52 PM
Achilles said...: tim in vermont said...

"The problem isn't the insults. It is that we are programmed to completely block out exterior stimulus or contrary opinion.

The mask mandates are the perfect example.”

Whether you like it or not, the research shows you are wrong, several lines of research. All you have backing you up are right wing editorials on places like Instapundit that are cringe inducing levels of simplistic and misleading.

People not coughing or sneezing or spitting gain nothing by wearing masks. Especially not the stupid cloth masks that don't block anything anyways.

It is stupid to make them wear masks.

It helps nobody if you are not stopping sneezes of coughs from spraying virus in the area.

If you are symptomatic you should be at home.

Stupid people like you are demanding the government control us for our own good. You and your stupidity are a direct threat to the republic.; 10/7/20, 12:38 AM
mikee said...: Declaring values and setting the action plan are ESSENTIAL to ending an argument. Arguments include the abandonment of normal mutual values, and include behavior such as insulting/attacking/killing people, and arguments usually include cessation of mutual actions, like commerce, or doing the dishes, while the argument continues.

Accepting mutual values, even if they are as one-sided as "Germany surrenders unconditionally" allows both sides to know the other side accepts and will follow a known set of rules going forward.

Setting an action plan, even if it is as broad as, "Cease all military action on May 8, 1945," provides a future that can be monitored for compliance and appraised for success or failure by both sides.

Corporate it may sound, but at its heart it is very, very human.; 10/7/20, 11:16 AM
mikee said...: Giving thanks to an aggressor is a useful technique. Saying, "No, thank you." throws an agressor off balance mentally just a bit, for just a while, and allows you to use that time to act to your own benefit.

I've been telling street beggars for decades, "No, thank you!" in a very cheery voice, but as if regretful that I cannot accept their offer of giving them money. Almost always gives me a few seconds to continue on my way.; 10/7/20, 11:21 AM
madAsHell said...: Is that a woman’s name?; 10/7/20, 2:57 PM
Misaa said...: https://www.blogger.com/u/1/blog/posts/7022447198611115725?hl=en&tab=jj; 10/8/20, 3:11 AM