Patronizing

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I found myself pondering the expression "paternalism" as an attitude expressing false benevolence towards someone. I'm not entirely sure paternalism is the right word in english (hence the inverted commas) but what I don't understand is the attitude some people have to preach about anything giving for granted the interlocutor has no knowledge about the subject discussed.
I haven't seen anything like that on here, therefore I feel free talking about it and asking for opinions on the subject.

What I have a tendency to get nervous about is when I state something on the line of

"as far as I know that behaviour x does not apply to the specific setting y, in setting z it applies in that ..... which shows how the behaviour in setting z may influence the behaviour in setting y. Which means that behaviour x applied to setting y needs correction"

and people jump to my throat with a paternalistic attitude that I cannot say that behaviour x is okay in setting y because ...(list of reasons)... and I must understand that ...(whatever)...

I hate it! What is unclear about the way I say things? I do my best to be beyond specific and clear, I point out stuff that shouldn't need being pointed out in normal peer to peer talk and yet I find myself frustrated by lack of communication because it's like I never talked. I chose word by word what I want to say, think through the best way to put it not to be misunderstood and I get neverending preaching about stuff I never said nor thought nor meant?

Really, I often wonder if the problem in communication failure is me or if people just hear a word here and a word there and jump to conclusions without listening and even caring about what is being said. It's like communication is one sided most of the time, in that I pay an awful lot of attention in getting my interlocutor right and the other person instead is just spitting out whatever goes through their minds...

EDITED TITLE: following two posts

Last edited by katkore on 30 Sep 2013, 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think the word you're looking for is "Patronizing" - to adopt an air of condescension toward someone.

Credo che la parola che stai cercando è "Patronizing" - di adottare un aria di condiscendenza verso qualcuno.

eheh! ^^ Thanks Fnord!
I heard the word "patronizing" but I wasn't sure about the meaning ^^

The sucky thing is that people can think someone (me, in a lot of cases) is being patronizing even though that person is just trying to offer advice or have a conversation. I don't go out of my way to be patronizing to anyone, but I still get accused of it from time to time and it drives me nuts.

well, i don't pretend to have an answer for this (i sometimes am puzzled by the same thing) but i did have this thought:

i think NTs tend to interpret our behaviors as if we were NT, because that is their only frame of reference.

therefore they attribute motives to our actions that don't exist - of this i am absolutely sure.

they can't understand, for instance, a dispassionate dedication to correct information. They can only believe it's pure ego driving our desire to give feedback or criticism, because if we were NT, that's the most likely explanation. They read social tone and meaning into communication where it does not actually exist. They hear their own judgments in their head (well i guess we do that too). They can't take plain language for plain language. They don't share our need for accurate facts because they have a wider sphere of information to draw on (e.g. social convention) intuitively. by and large, i don't think they share our love of data, period.

i, for instance, enjoy constructive criticism. i find it reassuring. it helps me know where i stand with my relationships, my performance, etc. it's far less threatening than it is helpful. but for someone else, a spelling test or a performance evaluation at work is either to be feared or a symbol of their achievements.

i'm not saying AS folks don't sometimes read meaning or intent incorrectly, or can't be judgmental; i just mean we do it for different reasons. I suppose we do it because we don't know, can't sense it, and have to make inferences based on past experience and, at best, logic.

I don't know; i know this isn't completely accurate and i haven't really spent a lot of time thinking it out, but i suspect the truth is close to this idea.

Hi Ralphy!

yeah, I've had that too, but it's different... Opi's answer fully describes the situation in the case you mention. Let's take someone jumped out of the blue and said Ralph is actually accepted for what he is but he himself doesn't accept his identity, you and I know there is a whole world behind it of feelings and a deeper meaning of being accepted and would point it out.
This is what you're making reference to, people take it as patronizing because they can't understand our strive for perfection in anything we do, while, on the other hand, perceiving themselves as perfectionists.
This is one of those wrong social syllogisms I really don't get... they call us pedantic and patronizing to make their lack of specificity look like a "strive for precision" like
"Mainstream people are precise"
"I am mainstream"
therefore "I am precise"
which is based on a wrong first assumption per say...

What I'm talking about is related to this in that starting from the same wrong social sillogism they do not listen to my words and give for granted I said something stupid, making themselves look stupid, but only to my eyes because anybody else out there perceives them as right... The absurd-fair... or rather then rephrasing "vanity-fair" because to me this is exactly what it is, they can't accept being wrong and being preempted because it hurts the view they have of themselves.


@ Opi: I'm quite like you finishing the above, I don't understand how someone can claim they strive for perfection by rejecting others preempting any potential misunderstanding...

That makes sense.

(for the record, I'm saying this because it does, indeed, make sense---which is another thing that annoys me: having to explain myself so that I don't sound patronizing)

I'm proud!
It's not easy to find something "making sense" out of books

... and well... this board ^^