I have oft observed the impatience of parties in an exchange of ideas/opinions when one party doesn’t “get it”.
It usually seems the one with “greater intelligence” is the one taking umbrage at failure to understand.
My perception of greater intelligence is surely subjective.
Nonetheless, Suffering Fools Badly is a summation of the phenomenon.
Anyone care to explain why this occurs?A greater ability in processing information won’t necessarily correlate with great social skills. A good all-rounder would both have excellent cognitive ability and be able to impart their ideas without getting wound up. But a lot of otherwise intelligent people cannot due to delusions of grandeur. If they were that clever, they’d know the meaning of humility…
I think in the main that there is a failure of the putative smart person to understand why it is the other person can’t seem to grasp what to him is a perfectly simple explanation. I’ll just go ahead and admit that I’ve been in that position, where I have tried to break down for someone a potentially difficult concept into what I would consider easy-to-digest pieces and in language that is simple and direct. When even that fails to penetrate the veil of ignorance I’ve gotten a bit frustrated, partly at myself for not being able to come up with a way to simplify it even more, and partly at the other person for making me have to try. It’s irrational, I know, but the older I get the less patience I seem to have. (Yeah, I’ll be booby-trapping my lawn before I know it.)
I think in some there may also be a certain, possibly unconscious but certainly arrogant contempt for ignorance perceived as a lack of intellectual curiosity. I think intellectual curiosity is a great thing and often fail to understand how some others don’t think the same way. I don’t hold them in contempt for it, but it does make me wonder why. I can see though how those with a superiority complex could easily turn that into contempt simply by considering such people beneath them. I’ve encountered numerous such people. They’re assholes.
sigh
Isn’t it obvious? Moron.*
*Yes, mods, that’s a joke.
/puts mod-looking hat on/
yes, tdn, this is a warning
/removes mod-looking hat, ducks and runs like all get out/
Having a little patience goes a long way. at least I learned that by trying to get complex ideas across to people who don’t share a common native language.
What you describe is not all that uncommon. I have been on both sides of such situations. There are some topics that I can’t quite get into small enough and sensible enough chunks to make it into my “understanding.” When someone else gets frustrated or annoyed with me for not grasping the “simple idea” they’re trying to communicate, I try to recall my feelings from when I was in the “teacher’s seat” and the “pupil” was having trouble grasping something I was trying hard to explain. With that insight I will try to explain to “the teacher” just where I’m having problems grasping the idea in question.
If that effort doesn’t help the “teacher” to “come down to my level” I will accept that this person hasn’t the skill to be doing the teaching and will just disregard the value of the lesson.
Most often, though, my stated ignorance, and apology for it, will allow the teacher to shift gears and come at the problem of communication from another angle, perhaps more than one. If the person really does know the subject, this is not all that hard to do. Depending on the topic and the individual involved, this works better than half the time. I can recall situations where my son was trying to explain some arcane math topics that I was having great difficulty with. I never did reach his level of understanding, but at least I understood my ignorance better.
Bottom line: it depends on the issue(s) and the people involved.
I think some of the arrogance comes from the mistaken belief that if you disagree with someone it is only because you do not understand them.
A: “I disagree with your conclusions.”
B: “Why are you having trouble understanding me? Let me explain it one more time-this time I’ll use smaller words. :rolleyes:”
I see this time and time again, on this board and in real life.
I don’t think it is helpful to discuss this in terms of an intelligent and a less intelligent party - rather it’s an asymmetrical communication problem, which is often set up so that one party sees more reason for annoyance.
There are some cases that I encounter reasonably often:
No reason here for anyone to get annoyed, between reasonable people.
Ample reason for A to get annoyed, here.
3a) how it should go, ideally:
A: We should install another breaker so that this circuit can be shut off separately.
B: No. It’s too much work and we don’t need to shut it off often.
A: OK.
3b) how it goes, often:
A: We should install another breaker so that this circuit can be shut off separately.
B: I don’t care about shutting off circuits.
A: (thinks) I make a statement about the circuit and he responds with a statement about what happens inside his own skull - WTF?
I had such a conversation recently, in a technical support call to me by a customer in the field (a technician who isn’t stupid at all. Unfortunately he has little English and no German or French, and I have little Italian)
We got stuck at his question whether to test something by making a connection between two named terminals on a device. Unfortunately there were, to my certain knowledge, at least eight devices having terminals of that name, in two control cabinets at the plant. So, to answer his question, I first needed to know which device, in which control cabinet, he was referring to. I could not communicate this basic problem to him - he always asked whether or not to bridge these terminals, and I always asked which cabinet he had opened and what the label on the device in question said. After some lost time I tried to reboot the conversation to a rational, factual one by asking how many fingers he had on his right hand (a precise, factual question surely amenable to a precise, factual answer - I thought we could work up from there) but he didn’t answer that either. At this point, if we had any sort of remote operated waldo on the site I’d have throttled him remotely. I had to hang up and pretend for the telephone line to have been disconnected. A bit later he called again; the problem had been resolved otherwise…
Ooh, flashback time!
Years ago, I was working at some random company (can’t tell you where, as the revelation of my staggering ignorance would cause you to sell all of your stock and move to Tibet) as a computer programmer. I was never really sure of what the work I was doing was supposed to do. I didn’t even know what the company did. Finally, I asked that the project leader explain it to me. (Acutally, there were two project leaders and two of us clueless newbies.)
PL: OK, there are 3 basic types of service: The Bohomolio Plan, the Googoobuber Time Re-org, and Flandoplastic Beeberbooger Option.
Me: Huh?
PL: sigh Let me talk slower. Of the 4 basic types of service, here are the top six: Within the Huperstastic Crumdofier Malification, there are forty-six levels of Crumdofication. The thirty-second, which is the only one that applies to you, depends on the Trucumifluction of level twenty-seven, which, as we all know, snicker has never re-abforcualized! (General laughter)
Me: Woah! Stop! Talk to me like I’m four. What do they do here?
PL: (Annoyed) Do I have to spell it out for you?
Me: Yes! That’s what I’ve been saying!
PL: OK. Here’s the little bunny. Bunny is having a bad day. Bunny is sad. So what does bunny do? He fujikmitutilizes the haverostoplicated emnastofarcated plazers, thereby incresing his yeild of carrots. Clearer?
Me: No. Not at all. Assume I know nothing at all about anything. This business we work for – it is an actual business, right?
PL: Of course! When they astrobunnifrier juffingto…
Me: Stop! This business… Do they, you know, sell something?
PL: Yes, they sell something.
Me: AHA! Now we’re getting somewhere. This thing that they sell – Could I hold it in my hand? If I didn’t keep it in the freezer, would it melt? Is it something your ordinary elephant would find useful? If I bought this thing, would a pimply-faced teenager ask me if I want fries with that?
Come to find out, it was magazine subscriptions. Sort of. I think.
So, in actuality, they didn’t do anything. That’s the beauty of it.
tdn: That was beautiful.
I tend to do it. I have a theory that we have fucked with the english language enough that there is a significant portion of the population that does not understand that actual words have actual meanings. Example:
Me:Cell phone use is prohibited at the table.
ring
Customer: (answers phone) Hello?
Me: Cell phone use is prohibited at the table.
Customer: Hold on. (Folds hand, continues talking)
Me: Sir, you need to get off the phone, you can’t use it at the table.
Customer: I’m not in the hand.
Me: Sir, Cell phone use is not allowed AT THE TABLE.
Customer: But I’m not in the hand.
Me: Stand up from the table sir or hang up.
Customer: Bitch.
Now bear in mind, if a supervisor was to walk past my table and see a player talking on the phone, it is MY ass that will get a write up. It will be my job at risk.
Then there is passive aggressive man (otherwise known as my husband)
Me: Can you hand me the broom?
crickets chirp
Me: Honey, can you hand me the broom?
Him: Huh?
Me: Honey, can you hand me the broom?
Him: What broom?
Me: The broom we sweep the floor with.
Him: Where is it?
Me: Beside the fridge, where it lives.
Him: The fridge or the freezer?
Since it is my job to enforce the house rules (at work) and I do try to state them as clearly as possible, I think the first example drives me the craziest. I’m saying something that most english speaking people would have no problem deciphering, but either they hear something else or they think it doesn’t mean what it means. The second is my husband making it more work for me to ask him to do something than to do it myself, which I’m allowed to bonk him on the head for.
I don’t have much problem explaining unknown concepts or ideas to people and rarely have ever had frustration when doing so. I used to act as translator between geeks and humans and was quite good at it.
Grr, wrong thread!
Yeah, it’s the “I’m right and you’re stupid” rationale, which is completely arrogant. The thinking goes like this: “I have explained this point to this person. They don’t agree with it. They must not understand it, because if they understood it they would see that I’m right. Therefore, any disagreement must spring from an intellectual failing on their part.” This rationale skips right over two other obvious explantions: that the first party hasn’t communicated his/her point well enough, or that the point was actually understood but the second party simply doesn’t agree. But by disregarding these explanations and settling immediately upon stupidity as the heart of the disagreement, the arrogant first party can label the second party a fool, and dress his/her failure to communicate effectively/argue persuasively as “not suffering a fool gladly.”
There are few concepts discussed in daily life that are so complicated, and few people so truly mentally impaired, that “he just doesn’t get it because he’s an idiot” is a legitimate defense. “I don’t suffer fools gladly” to me means “I failed to communicate effectively enough to be understood.” It’s not something I would brag about, personally.
To me, neither of your examples are situations where you were not understood and ascribed the misunderstanding to idiocy on the other person’s part, loftily excusing your failure to commuicate with “I don’t suffer fools gladly” – where, as the OP’er said, one party “doesn’t get it” and the other party takes umbrage.
Instead, your examples to me a situations where you communicated effectively; refused to accept the other party’s insistence that they didn’t hear you/misunderstood you; and insisted that you be listened to. And you did it in both situations without losing your temper with someone who was being intentionally obtuse.
That isn’t miscommunication, it’s effective communication.
Some people’s intellects are as powerful as locomotives.
Which means they’re difficult to get up to speed, slow to brake, not likely to change direction quickly, and may derail catastrophically.
But they are powerful!
The smartest guy in the room is usually the guy who doesn’t think he is.
Allow me to translate for you:
crickets chirp = Not, now. I am watching something
Him: Huh? = Not, now. I am watching something
Him: What broom? = Not, now. I am watching something
Him: Where is it? = Not, now. I am watching something
Him: The fridge or the freezer? = Not, now. I am watching something
Most people are crap at explaining things.
I nominate this statement as a motto for the Bush Administration.