It is probably of an immature dolt who’s too vain and inept to be taken seriously by anyone.
Why is that?
More often than is necessary, I find myself talked down to, taken for someone who is of below par intelligence. For nothing other than being a teenager! It’s as if the fact that I’m a teenager implies that I am too stupid to understand what is said to me and necessitates that I either not be talked at all, or be given a watered down version; one that my puny teenage brain can handle. I contest that. Vehemently.
That’s not me! I’m not an idiot! (Well, not all the time.)
For the sake of the argument, let’s say that the assumptions are true; which, more often than not, isn’t the case. Let’s say that teenagers really are dense and daft dimwits, does talking down to them help? (Note the masterful use alliteration, three “D”s!)
Surely, condescension will only exacerbate things. Talk down to someone long enough and eventually they get used to it. It can only have negative effects on the person; it won’t help them in any way. Now, talk to them as you would and you might actually be doing them some good. Patronizing does no good; to patronize someone is to belittle them, and that stops them from realizing their true potential. A counterintuitive practice if ever there was one.
Take these two examples:
“What you’re trying to say is…”
“Let me see if I can put this in terms simple enough for you.”
To me, they translate to:
I’m better, you’re inferior. You’re too thick to form coherent thought. You’re an imbecile, and while we’re at it, you’re also a moron.”
This way of communicating is annoying at best, exceptionally detrimental at worst. Granted, whoever does that may not necessarily have offending at heart, but it’s all the same at the receiving end. It’s painful.
Can we please stop doing that? Please? If not for maintaining common decency then for conserving the collective sanity of the nest generation!
#ThingsIWishFor
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