The self: The tolerable

[davewitley]

Tabouli wrote:
> 
> Ahhh, that ol' vicious circle of insecurity.  All too familiar.  If 
they insult you, they're telling the truth.  If they compliment you, 
they're lying in order to be polite, or manipulative (i.e. they want 
something).  If they reassure you that their compliments are sincere, 
at first you doubt their honesty, and, if they persist and seem 
genuine, their judgment.  

>
There is an unfortunate consequence of this for me, which is that 
when I want to commend or compliment somebody, it comes out back-
handed.  The reasoming is this.

For somebody to say something nice about me must surely be a definite 
question mark over their judgement, so I only really accept it if I 
have independent evidence of the quality of their judgement in other 
areas.  Therefore, if I want to compliment somebody else, I need to 
make it credible by providing supporting evidence of my capacity to 
make the judgement.  In the context, this is most relevantly done by 
commenting in detail on the issues over which I want to make the 
compliment, considering carefully both sides of every argument.  
Since people are rarely so perfect that there is nothing negative at 
all to be found, and the thing comes out as a very lukewarm and mealy-
mouthed endorsement.

It's a bit like surveyor's reports.  You won't ever get a report on a 
property that says it's good: they feel they are not doing their job 
for you as a client unless they have found a few faults to help you 
knock the price down.  So you can tell that a property is a good one 
if there are lots of little nitpicks, because if there really is 
something wrong they will major on that and relegate the other stuff.

David