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"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?

Full post as published by Althouse on October 06, 2020 (boomark / email).