We have different tastes, you and I

[brief_therapy]

"You're an idiot."

That is approximately what I hear when I say that I like a thing and someone disagrees with me by saying, "Oh, no! That thing you like is horrible!"

"Oh no! That thing you like is ridiculous!"

"Oh no! You call that MUSIC? It's trash!"

In other words, (the way I hear it), "You are incredibly stupid for liking the thing you like."

This

Comments

[brief_therapy]

I've thought a lot about what you've written here...

In my work we have a weekly meeting where we officially present our ideas and get critique from our coworkers. It's an integral part of the therapeutic method we use and we would be much less effective therapists if we didn't have this open forum for feedback.

In that setting, I think that the ability to openly criticize another person's ideas is necessary and leads to good things.

My post was about another kind of critique - not of ideas but of a person's taste. If you say, "I love that song" and I say "I hate that song" we're expressing a difference in taste. On the other hand, if you say, "I love that song" and I say "that song is pure garbage" - - - to me I've just said that you're an idiot who doesn't know music from garbage.

It's a minor difference to most people, but at this time of year every year it bugs me.

(One more example from real life that started me on this rant to begin with: a very dear gay friend of mine LOVED the song that won Melodifestivalen. A woman who did not like the song said to him, "I thought gay people had good taste.")

[nomaddervish]

It's not a minor difference to me... "That song is pure garbage" is, to me, a comment about the song and nothing else. I see it as completely different from "You're an idiot who doesn't know music from garbage."

I do agree with you on the parenthetical extra example, though, because the comment from the woman who didn't like the song was a comment about a group your friend belongs to ("gay people") - or, perhaps more to the point, it was a comment about what people with "good taste" should or shouldn't think about the song - rather than a comment about the song itself.