People have evolved into being so at ease with condescension, it is getting difficult to determine innocent comments from ones meant to disguise varying degrees of animosity. One rule of thumb that has served me well is to beware of disclaimers before anything is even said: Im not trying to... I dont mean to... Im not trying to sound like. Phrases designed to make it psychologically easier for the speaker to state their case... Although disclaimers arent exactly the textbook definition of condescension, I find they are often vehicles used to introduce more sinister dialogue later on. It could be my own paranoia, but thats hard to self-diagnose without external feedback.
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 12:53:39 +0000