# Understanding Defensiveness

**URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/understanding-defensiveness/153
**Category:** Unbounded
**Tags:** learning, social-dynamics
**Created:** [May 26, 2021, 12:48am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/understanding-defensiveness/153 "2021-05-26T00:48:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 5

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### Author: ![Max](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/user_avatar/discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/max/32/97_2.png) [@Max](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Max)
#### Post date: [May 30, 2021, 2:06am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/understanding-defensiveness/153/5 "2021-05-30T02:06:26Z")

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> [@anonymous3](#):
>
> Writing quantity increase (to more than fits the context)

> [@Elliot](#):
>
> A writing quantity _decrease_ can also indicate defensiveness. Sometimes people write extra arguments to defend themselves with.

I think maybe I need to practice different methods for stuff I post, depending on whether it’s meant to be general/standalone or a reply to someone.

WRT my defensiveness, I think I usually end up writing more, rather than less. I also think I do this _generally_ with stuff I write, like I value thoroughness\[1\].

Another reason for my writing too much: I think having multiple points provides some excess capacity in what I’m saying. Maybe multiple points / excess cap is an okay strategy if I’m writing a post for a general audience, but not okay when replying to something where I risk being defensive.

Practicing different writing styles for different contexts sounds like it might help to avoid “Writing quantity increase (_to more than fits the context_)” (emphasis mine).

That said, I’m cautious about trying to address symptoms rather than systemic problems. Like, I don’t want to get better at _hiding_ defensiveness; I want to not be defensive all together. This reminds me a bit of what @ingracke [said recently](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67/23):

> [@\[Dface and Doubtingthomas\] Discussion Tree Practice](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/dface-and-doubtingthomas-discussion-tree-practice/67/23):
>
> I think “mastering” emotions may be the wrong way to think of them. It is hard to tell because it’s not really explained, so it could mean a lot of things. But usually when people talk about, say, mastering their anger, they mean that they still _get_ angry, and they just have some amount of _control_ over it. They are able to suppress it, or use it in a targeted way, instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.
> 
> So they aren’t really resolving the issues, beliefs, internal disagreements & coercion, etc that are causing their anger. Instead they are just channeling, controlling, suppressing, etc, the anger.

Note: I think I am doing more than just writing quantity stuff from @anonymous3’s list of clues, but this seems easy as a first ‘clue’ to discuss. It’s also a good one to try and fix first because _too much text_ is a compounding\[2\] error: more text → more places for defensiveness to emerge → more stuff to analyze → the harder it is to isolate individual problems and work on them.

* * *

1. mb I need to practice trying to say _just_ one good decisive thing in a reply 

2. compounding isn’t exactly the write word, b/c like all errors can compound. I mean like it’s an error that (relative to other errors) does more magnification of problems. Maybe another way to put it: WRT overreaching, some errors are more significant than others, so bringing one’s error rate down to below one’s progress rate is faster if you tackle problems in the right order.

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