Mind & Motivations: Understanding the Temptation to Offend
A common characteristic of emotional abusers is the belief that you couldn’t possibly know anything. This is how abusers defend their egos: by denying that other people can ever be more intelligent than the abuser is. When an abuser decides that you’re the stupid one, ridiculing your knowledge and belittling your education and questioning your expertise becomes the goal. At every opportunity. The abuser does not care that you have the knowledge and credentials to back up what you’re saying; belittling you so that you shut up is the entire goal. There are people in this world who exist for the advancement of knowledge; and there are people in this world who have no higher purpose than to get into pissing matches with others, to express superior dominance, to defeat all others at any cost to the self-esteem of others. I’m happy to tell you that there is a way to win a contest with such people: Recognize abusers as abusers, and dump them. Treat them to the aloneness they deserve.
We should suspect that every bigotry arises from a lack of familiarity: Someone who openly hates minorities and foreigners has no minorities nor foreigners in his neighborhood or family. And similarly for someone who expresses hatred and prejudice toward signs of education.
Under this principle, anytime someone puts his good manners aside and openly attacks or points out someone else’s differences, the attacker is informing the victim that “You don’t belong here.” The victim should recognize that he or she is in physical danger, and take measures to exclude the attacker in the future. In a civilized world, it’s the attacker who doesn’t belong, who can’t belong, because he won’t get along. His display of disrespect for your boundaries is the proof.
Anti-intellectual slurs are basically xenophobia disguised as class warfare. (I mean: The remarks couldn’t possibly be class warfare; after all, we’re talking about people whose reading level would never include the names and topics on this Wikipedia page.) The only motive is the primal one: to kick someone who’s different.
One feature of the disordered personality is obsession with being first in the pecking order. Any friend or family member who tries to shine or better himself is beaten back into place with “What, you think you’re better than me?” Such a person criticizes his inferiors for being inferior, and criticizes his superiors because “they think they’re better than me.” Thus, every relationship is seen as a competition and resented for it.
This is not the usual Freudian meaning of Ego, but even so, a kind of overprotection of the Ego is present: the assumption that when other people “act educated”, they’re doing it just “to look more important”. The Paranoid thinks everyone is thinking of him all the time: he thinks people go to college for four years and get degrees just to make him feel bad. Now that’s an ego. {You’re reading “You Use Big Words” by J. E. Brown.}
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In Favor of Dumbing Down
While I was finishing up this web page, while reading about the elections in Germany, I happened to see this headline:
Etwa 17 Millionen Erwachsene in Deutschland haben Probleme damit, komplexe Texte zu verstehen.
Allow me to translate:
About 17 million adults in Germany have problems understanding complex text.
Do you know how the German news bureau Tagesschau answered that need?
With kindness. 🙂
In 2024 they announced:
To help them learn about current topics, Tagesschau is now broadcasting television news in Easy Language.
— “Tagesschau startet Sendung in Einfacher Sprache”, 12 Jun 2024 (at Tagesschau.de)
I needed Google Translate to help me there. I have friends in Germany but my German skills are so terrible that *I* need this news service! … Make that 17 million plus one.
For many years, the Voice of America has broadcast news in its trademark “Special English” and “Learning English” — to countries overseas. It’s a great help to foreigners who may not understand big words in this tricky language. But this is the first time I’ve heard of a news organization catering specifically to local citizens who need their news to be more digestible: the very old, the very young, and their families; immigrants, guest workers, travelers, the hard-of-hearing: “Die neue Sendung ist für alle”: The new broadcast is for everyone.
For me, it’s perfect: Easy German news is just above my level, so maybe I can finally improve my German (Hoffentlich kann ich endlich mein Deutsch verbessern).
Obviously you should never pick on the less educated, nor the more educated, nor anyone just because they’re different — but you should NEVER tolerate anyone who criticizes you for what is good about yourself. You worked hard to get your education! Defend your borders: Deal roughly with bullies and abusers. But when dealing with polite people who ask politely, “What does that word mean? What’s a ____?” remember the examples of these news organizations, who teach us that it’s ok to explain patiently.
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Cats in the Alley
There was almost an altercation at the men’s meeting.
One evening I left the card game for the quiet of the beanbag room, where I whipped out my notebook to jot some ideas down. Possibly ideas which ended up in this book.
Later that week, at the next group chat meeting, a total stranger had an urgent issue to discuss:
Jim’s topic was his annoyance with people who don’t do what he wants them to do. Or as he put it, “Manners”.
Referring to the night when I was getting work done in a beanbag chair, Jim said “You always have your nose in a book!” The gist of his remark was that he had caught me in the act of being brainy, and this made me seem unapproachable (to him).
“🙁 My actions are not negotiable,” I growled.
With surprise, the facilitator (a retired psychotherapist) said “You’re offended!”
“I am,” I said. And to Jim I said “And you owe me an apology.”
Jim said “I don’t see why I can’t say that.”
I said “Because I might want to settle it in the alley, ya little twat!”
Long story short, the facilitator smiled (perhaps to see a show of strength), while Jim had no answer for me (like ever again), and I got a reputation for standing up for myself — and for reading and writing whenever I feel like it. The results of which, you are now reading.
Moral of this story:
- Complaining about a stranger’s actions is rude and impertinent.
- Exaggeration (“You always ____!”) based on one example is childish and manipulative.
- Any stranger who takes that much notice of your habits is probably in the habit of watching you.
- Any stranger who tells you how to be imagines himself to be your superior.
- Any stranger who takes that much interest in regulating your behavior is probably attracted to you … in a May–December kind of way. Not as an equal.
- Any stranger who presumes to open his mouth and regulate your behavior is a tactless ass! And should mind his own business.
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Excerpts from my book (in progress)
Translations
| Statement
| Meaning
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“You use big words.”
| “I think I can take you. I challenge you to a fight. I need you to hit me in the face as hard as you can.” Whenever you’re dealing with someone who’s in a psychotic rage because you remind him of the poor grades he got in school, these words should occur to you. And remember: There’s a very effective way to teach a bully a lesson. There’s a very effective way to punch his Mute button.
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“You think you’re so great!”
| Mind reading does not exist, and so, most statements that begin with “He thinks” and “She thinks” and “You think” are guesses and projections.
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“Mind your place.”
| “Don’t be pretentious. Mind your place in the social rank: the place which I picked for you — the place which I decided you belong in.”
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“Don’t Git Above Your Raisin’.“
| “Don’t Git Above MY Raisin’. Or else I’ll git all bent out of shape. Then I’ll turn permanently snotty and oppositional, and I’ll work to sabotage your progress. And I’ll tell all my incel friends you’re emasculating me. … If only I could pronounce that word. 😭 "
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“You’re trying to be intellectual when everybody else is just trying to have a nice casual conversation.”
| “I thought I was among friends, until you opened your mouth and I discovered I was in the company of an adult, and being around adults makes me reeeeeeally uncomfortable. I would have expressed it that way, but I’m not yet at a reading level that would enable me to express such thoughts in words, nor am I mature enough to take responsibility for my insecurities by putting them into I-statements. So instead I blame others.”
“… In other words: If you look like one of us, you’d better talk like one of us, because we’re judging you non-stop, and any random word you say could turn out to be a shibboleth that gets you excluded from our clique.”
“It is my place to order you around.” Do you hear the bullying attitude now? “It is my place to rate and criticize parts of your person and personality which polite people would have the good sense and decency not to touch. In other words, your boundaries don’t mean squat to me.”
“I’m overreactive and easily annoyed.”
“People should be thinking of moi when they make their educational plans.”
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— J. E. Brown
Comebacks
Responses to a few childish debating tactics.
| If someone tells you:
| Your correct response is:
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“You use big words.”
| “Well, here’s another big word for you: “dic-tion-ary”! Get one!”
“Oh, I’m sorry — did I use a three-syllable word that wasn’t the name of a video game or a Gerber’s flavor?”
“What a judgmental thing to say.”
“Well, here are some short words you’ll like: Shut up.”
“Your comment is very important to us. Please hold while I connect you to the next available give-a-damn.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I speak out of turn? DID I SPEAK WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION?!”
“Hey, that’s a personal remark, and it’s offensive! You apologize to me right now.”
… If no apology comes: “I will tell you: I do not dumb down for anybody. I did not work hard to get an education just to be insulted by simple-minded people. There is NOTHING wrong with the way I talk. If you’ve got a problem with a word I used, you buy a dictionary.”
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“Duh, this cartoon with the fat orange cat makes me feel stoopid.”
| “Spoken like an 8-year-old.”
“Ever heard the old saying, ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt’? Think about what you reveal about your IQ when you talk that way. No one needs to know that you were defeated by a cartoon that high-schoolers can understand.”
“Maybe the reason why people think you’re unintelligent is because you keep telling them that. If it weren’t for you blabbing, nobody would find out! If you can’t keep your own secrets, why should I tell you mine? Why should anybody trust you with a secret?”
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“You use big words to make people feel stupid.”
| “False accusations of wrongdoing are verbal abuse. I don’t like abusive people.”
“Criticizing the way people talk is rude.”
“Yeah, right. And I’m sure NASA went to the Moon JUST to show off, JUST to make YOU feel inferior. Because you’re so important and famous that NASA knows about you.
How important you must be, that everyone is thinking of YOU all the time. … You must think YOU’RE a big deal, and everyone ELSE is small.”
“Yeah, that’s right: We scientists and intellectuals created the modern world, with its space travel and technology and social networks — just to make YOU feel small. ……… My God. What an ego you must have if you believe crap like that. You must think you’re really fucking important to us. What an ego, to believe that our goal wasn’t to improve the world, but to make YOU feel bad. Go try your conspiracy theory on someone who will fall for it.”
“A therapist might be able to help you with your paranoid belief that people are targeting you, and your crazy paranormal belief that you can read minds.”
“You better remember your manners, asshole.”
“I won’t be accused of being unkind to you when I haven’t been. So you better cram your rudeness right now.”
“You can’t see inside my head! I’m not putting up with your made-up accusations and insults.”
“Your tendency to pass judgment on other people’s innocent preferences and habits will cause trouble in your relationships.”
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“My friend talks just to hear herself talk.
And she doesn’t listen when I tell her to shut up.”
| “Sounds like your attitude of superiority, your self-declared right to tell her to shut up, is the problem here.”
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“You’re flaunting your diploma.”
“You’re flaunting your education.”
| “No I’m not. You’re flaunting your bigotry.”
“No I’m not. You’re flaunting your childishness.”
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“You’re so pretentious.”
| “I’m not pretending anything, I’m the real thing. And you’re really rude.”
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“Why are you so serious about school? It’s like you’re trying to be white or something.”
| “You know, Frederick Douglass used to teach his fellow slaves how to read (link to the story). One time his reading group was broken up by slave owners with weapons, who didn’t want them to learn how to read. You should think about which side you’re on when you berate people for their learning.”
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— J. E. Brown
Random Thoughts.
Be proud of what you’ve striven to become; and dump anyone who asks you to feel otherwise. And as for people who whine that you should come down to their level because they’re not striving to be anything — dump them. {You’re reading “You Use Big Words” by J. E. Brown.}
— J. E. Brown
From the chapter on “How to Be an Insensitive Jerk”
I don’t know if there’s really a book titled How to Be Rude, but if there were, the Devil would speak in bloody red letters, the Conscience would speak in small print, and the book would say something like this:
Did someone use a big word that you don’t understand? Rather than check in a dictionary first, immediately assume you’ve been insulted.
Point Out People’s Differences. Groom your friends to be interchangeable. If one of your friends ever starts acting weird, i.e., starts showing off his education or travels or culture or whatever — correct him by saying, “Oh, there he goes again, talking about ____.” Anyone who would use grammar or spelling or knowledge different from yours is just uncool and cringe. 🙄
You can help your friend by buying him or her “Dumb Downer,” the new software program from Dumb Downer, Inc. This software app helps uncool people to guard their public image, by masking their intelligence, by introducing misspellings where there aren’t enough, and by removing words with too many syllables or letters. It can even spruce up your web site by adding those “Under Construction” pages which authority figures and people over 30 find so annoying. With this new software, it’s never been so easy to look like a loser! … Er, I mean, lik a looser.
— J. E. Brown
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Quotes
For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.
— Winnie-the-Pooh
But please remember, especially in these times of groupthink and the right-on chorus, that no person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow and be perceived as fully blossomed as you were intended. Or who belittles in any fashion the gifts you labor so to bring into the world.
— Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983, 2023)
70th Reprehend not the imperfections of others for that belong[s] to Parents Masters and Superiours.
— “Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation”, tr. Francis Hawkins (ca. 1640)
Random quotes from around the Internet:
Notice all the misspellings in these — I’m sure these posters think other people made them look stupid:
i dont watch that olbermen guy he uses big words
he uses big words to sound smart, i know alot of big words but i dont because well most ppl dont know what they mean and because it makes me look smart when i dotn want to
The biggest errors were made by a “writer”. For this example, I just had to bust out my red grading marker:
George Will is a political commentator … who writes a syndicated column … and also appears on a variety of Sunday morning talk shows…. He tends to use a lot of really big words. … It occurred to me the reason for using big words is to make other people think you are smart.*1 In Will’s case, I believe that, somewhere in the back of that tiny little head of his*2, he has convinced himself*1 that, if he uses words most people don’t understand, they will think he is smarter than he actually is, … and will therefore give greater weight to the things he says. Essentially, I think he believes*1 people will be more likely to think he is right if he uses big words.
Footnotes:
- This is a Cynical Allegation about motives, expressing a woo-woo belief in mind reading. Accusations about unseen motives are, by definition, evidence-free. In the law, evidence-free accusations are called slander.
- This is a Physical Insult — childish and low class, and typical of the bully mindset.
I hate to burst the writer’s bubble, but ALL of our founding fathers talked like this: they were well educated, having studied the ancient and modern forms of government — many had law degrees — and they constructed our Constitution and our legal system out of legal jargon (that’s “big words” to you). Concepts of state preoccupied them. The only reason we usually don’t hear about it is because our newscasters dumb it down for the rest of us. George Will simply stands out by default. You’re looking for phonies who fake their educational levels? Look in the newsroom first. Many of our esteemed journalists secretly have wonkish degrees:
- Anderson Cooper (BA Political Science)
- Savannah Guthrie (lawyer (JD))
- Rachel Maddow (BA Public Policy, Stanford; Rhodes Scholar, DPhil in Politics from Oxford)
- Ari Melber (lawyer (JD))
- Wolf Blitzer (MA, International Relations)
- and finally, George Will (PhD Political Science, Princeton)
He’s the real deal! So much for the “tiny head” theory.
You know, if I were you, I’d watch out for those other journalists, the ones who manipulate you by dumbing down so that you’ll like them more, so that you’ll do favors for them, like supporting them when they run for public office — those are the ones to be suspicious of.
If you don’t appreciate George Will giving us all a rare deeper look into the workings of government — What can I say? On the day you wrote those insults about him, your curiosity must have been exhausted, poor thing. Perhaps from thinking too hard?
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Further Reading at Other Sites
Concepts:
definition of big words, define big words, what are big words, why do people say big words.
definition of you use big words, what does you use big words mean, why do people say “you use big words”.
More at This Site
- Is there a booklet of manners in your house?
We offer this one:
How Rude! — a booklet about rude and abusive people, and how to recognize them
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