Context and inflection are crucial. For instance, if I casually say, “Why don’t you just…?” to a stranger, I’ll often add, “But take this with a grain of salt—I haven’t really thought it through,” while shrugging or using other body language to show uncertainty. I’d expect the same courtesy from others.
With friends who know me well, I’m more likely to use humor or exaggeration. They understand not to take me seriously when my tone conveys sarcasm. And I expect the same from them in return.
In all cases, knowing your audience is key. I would not, for example, tell someone with stage 4 cancer, “why don’t you just buy a crystal and have it dissolve your tumor” as serious off-the-cuff advice, or in jest.
Taking your point, however, what if I had re-phrased it as: …placed on the words they’re hearing. This makes it difficult or impossible for them to be objective about the data they’re receiving.
I don’t need to argue it at all. I’m content to be wrong. My initial post was only “food for thought”, if you will.
It really depends on both the speaker and the other person.
I suck at math, so when I’ve described a problem people who are far more competent would help me write equations to solve the problem.
But again, it depends on the situation. Does the speaker know anything about the subject they are dealing with? Have they tried anything new? Also how much does the person they are speaking to know. Thats fundamentally what it comes down to. How much knowledge does the speaker have about their own problem and how much knowledge does the person they are speaking to have?
If you’ve been dealing with a chronic health condition for 30 years and tried everything, and someone you just met said ‘try meditation’ then yeah they do not grasp the problem. However if you just recently developed a chronic health condition and you are speaking to someone who has had the same condition for 30 years and spent those 30 years learning about it, their advice will probably be pretty good.
if you don’t know anything about cars, and your car is making a weird sound and you speak to a mechanic who says ‘why don’t you just’ then that is usually helpful.
Fundamentally it comes down to information asymmetry. Also some problems don’t have solutions, but people ‘want’ to believe those problems have solutions, so they will offer answers that don’t work in the real world just so they can convince themselves that the problems are actually solvable when they really aren’t.
Heh. New parents deal with well intended advice from, well everyone, all the time.
Especially when most stressed. My advice, when asked , is a practiced weak smile while saying “thank you for your concern” and moving along. The person without kids in particular is the most unassailable expert as they are the ones who have never made a parenting mistake! None of us with kids can claim that!
Also, experienced parents are probably the least likely to say “why don’t you just…”
That “just” does a lot of heavy lifting for people who aren’t experts with 30 years of personal experience. They’re the least likely to use that word when offering useful advice, because they know from that experience there is no just doing anything to solve a thorny issue.
I saw some great advice for mansplainers that might also work here. The advice was to treat them like children who are trying to join an adult conversation. “Why yes, very good, that would work if it weren’t for . . .” Always with just a bit of “look at the monkey dancing!” in your tone. But be delighted with it.
It’s interesting that you mention that, because I think the mentality behind some of the unsolicited advice probably is similar to that of mansplaining - the kind of Dunning-Kruger-ed assumption of greater knowledge/expertise.
There’s also a kind of solipsism - which is very related to Dunning-Kruger/mansplaining - the notion that your experience cannot be more complete or relevant than the explainer’s and so if a “helpful” idea has just occurred to them, then it a) cannot have occurred to you and b) must be relevant because if it wasn’t, why would they be thinking it. The idea that your experience might go beyond theirs is apparently quite difficult to conceive of.
(It’s notable that even in this thread you’ve had to explain and re-explain that the thing you’re talking about really happens, even if other people haven’t experienced it themselves.)
But yeah. and another related thing (although somewhat off-topic for the thread) is the thing where people assume their norms and preferences are the optimal way (or just the right and proper way) for anything to be done.
I frequently get people asking me to explain why I do a thing the way I do the thing - often the question is posed in quite a pained tone like “OMG why are you doing it like THAT?” - and the only real explanation I have is ‘that’s just normal for me and everyone else around me, and it works, and seems fine’. They often don’t bother to explain the way they think the thing ought to be done, because they’ve apparently assumed their norm is some kind of self-evident conformation to a platonic ideal.
For me, these three statements convey different levels of implied authority:
“Why don’t you just …?”
This phrasing is posed as a question and includes the diminishing word “just.” I use it when I’m not an expert and haven’t given it much thought, so my suggestion should be taken with a large grain of salt.
“You should just …”
This one isn’t posed as a question but still uses “just.” I say it when I’m more confident in my answer (hence declaring rather than asking), though it should still be taken with a medium grain of salt.
“You should …”
This statement neither poses a question nor uses “just.” I typically use it when I’m quite confident in my advice, but it’s still worth taking with a small grain of salt, as I’m not an expert.
If I am an expert on the subject and I’m confident my suggestion is the best course of action, I would say “you must …”
It’s possible there are differences in British and American usage of “why don’t you just …?”—it seems your (a Brit’s) interpretation may be more authoritative than mine (a Yank’s).
There definitely is a dialectical difference that may be an aggravating factor in transatlantic English conversations; certainly the US conventions of ‘you should’ and more so, ‘you need to’, I have an ongoing tendency to interpret as more imperative than the speaker/writer probably intends
