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“More thoughts on sincere conversation”
Another interesting perspective. :-) One particular thing i'd like to comment on:
We are unable to speak with true sincerity, as true sincerity must flow from the private self, which no longer exists -- the quest to eliminate smalltalk has contradictorily created people who cannot speak sincerely
i disagree that i'm unable to speak with true sincerity, although i'm open to the possibility that this might not be the case for many and/or most people. i've recently been diagnosed as autistic+adhd, and like many/most, autistics, i've always found smalltalk to be challenging and exhausting. It's much easier for me to get into sincere/heartfelt conversations about complex topics or issues. When i'm interacting with fellow neurodivergents, there's no inherent issue with not engaging in smalltalk, and instead engaging - modulo people's individual boundaries - in what neurotypical people can call ‘oversharing’ or ‘info dumping’. But when i'm interacting with neurotypical people, and have to engage in smalltalk for more than a short period of time, it usually feels to me like it's being done to _avoid_ getting into sincere/heartfelt conversations.
(Nt people who assume - as is common psychological/psychiatric practice - that nd people have congenital communication deficits can be surprised by how fluidly and easily nd people interact and communicate with each other. Assuming that nd people have communication deficits because we don't have an nt communication style is like dropping a monolingual person into a country where their native language isn't at all spoken, and then assuming they're intellectually impaired because they don't immediately grok that country's languages.)
i myself don't seek the _elimination_ of all smalltalk, and i'm certainly willing to continue make the effort to engage in it for prosocial reasons, but given that i find it gets in the way of _really_ connecting with people, i prefer to minimise its presence in my life.
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🏷 neurodiversity,reply,sociology