When someone wants to praise something, they belittle something else. Why it happens.
- Lack of confidence in X to praise.
- If you’re confident, you can just say, “I love X, no matter what anyone says!” that’s all you need to say.
- I want others to approve of my “feeling that X is good” because I’m not confident
- So I want to talk about “why X is better”.
- Can’t name a single “reason why X is better.”
- If it’s clear why X is better, just tell them that.
- Unable to explain why, and their reasons are not sufficiently convincing
- So belittle something Y that is not X.
- Contrary to his intention, belittling Y will not convince him of the merits of X.
- No amount of “Y is bad” can make “X is good.”
- It just spreads the fact that “some people can’t explain how good X is, and they’re just belittling Y.”
- X rating is more or less down.
relevance - human bug - ressentiment - The world closes in on the naysayers.
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