My understanding of "consensus" is that "consensus" does not exist unless there is no strong disagreement. Disclaimer: I'm used to Quaker practice on this topic, where it's regarded as completely unexceptional that a single person who feels strongly is enough to count as "no consensus" even if there's 50 people who feel strongly the other way.
Why would it be either? Neither of those is a remotely plausible explanation for the thing described.
I'm in camp "nigh completely incompatible mental processes," to cause the mutual incomprehension of why the others do the thing.
That's roughly my best guess. But thus far, I've never even been able to find an apparently-functional translation.
I'm in camp "If that blind spot were any bigger, you'd need to see an ophtalmologist", because seriously, I agree with you on a lot of stuff, but "People keep bringing up the same criticisms of how I handle stuff, I don't understand why", oh my gods.
You are continuing to talk at somebody who expressed a lack of interest talking to you. That's a behavior that can make a person more willing to interpret your every action and motivation in a negative light.
Seebs, if I may mention a thing that I've briefly seen, is it possible that you expect people to thoughtfully communicate the fact that they cannot thoughtfully communicate? Sometimes all someone can say is "GO AWAY"; they don't have the spoons to say "I don't have the spoons to talk to you about this, can we talk some other time?" and sometimes you fail to see that? Could that be a thing that's happening?
You'd think! Except that the criticisms tend to revolve around status in a way that really, really, does not seem to fit. And I've had plenty of people who dislike me, or who are pretty damn careful thinkers, confirm that they don't think that particular criticism makes sense, even if they think other criticisms do. So, to put it simply: I've encountered a small number of people, under half a dozen, who have somehow become deeply convinced that I'm doing certain things for Social Status reasons, that I'm status-conscious, that I'm possibly even status-obsessed, and that everything I do is about making me look good and other people look bad. I've also encountered hundreds of people who think that this criticism is utter nonsense. And that includes people who think I'm an asshole, who think I'm dishonest, who think I'm evil, who are definitely not trying to avoid thinking bad things about me, but who don't think that particular bad thing can possibly be reconciled with my behavior. The people who definitely aren't trying to make excuses or defend me, but who think the criticism is nonsense, significantly outnumber the people who advance it. And none of the people who advance it are able to articulate reasons why that even look like reasoning to me. And none of them appear to be able to make any sense of anything I say about my intent or motives. So, yes, there's absolutely a blind spot, but I don't think it's that "this criticism is actually correct, secretly I am obsessed with social standing".
Oh, sure. And that is absolutely a thing that can result in me at least temporarily disregarding a thing that I will later find good evidence for. But usually I have enough people around to yell at me about being confused that it gets pointed out pretty quickly.
And yes, rigs is entirely right. Only, the thing is, I'm not actually particularly expecting local troublemaker to be able to respond; as noted, the people who form this model seem to all be unable to engage on the topic. But pointing out that I'm really interested in it and want to figure it out might be relevant to other readers.
