That’s it. Reposting another comment where I responded to someone’s specific problem with my first one:
I disagree that “if your media taste is still at that level” is an attack on anyone. It’s a purely descriptive statement - kids who haven’t watched a lot of things operate on a more surface level, simple as. People who are older should be broadening their horizons to more complex fare, simple as. I agree that I let myself get mad and that was a mistake, but people got unreasonably mad at me for the first comment, not the third.
This is probably my last response on this topic, we’re at over 24 hours since the first comment now.
I will again invoke pragmatics, in that “if” in common language often reads as “only if,” or something very close to it, especially if there’s no context to encourage the other reading. I know that as a logical operator that’s not what it means, but you should be aware from your own experience that people frequently don’t use it as that logical operator.
Example: If you come to me with an idea and I say “That sounds like a good idea if you’re a complete idiot,” if we treat “if” as being the traditional operator, then this is not an insult because it could be that it sounds like a good idea to anyone, or a wide range of people, and complete idiots are just a specific demographic that I’ve arbitrarily chosen to name. However, pragmatically what I mean by this statement is closer to “That sounds like a good idea only if you’re a complete idiot,” which is obviously an insult.
So considered the reading “[this media] reads as really deep and interesting only if your media taste is still at that level”. Can you see why people might not take well to that? And how much can we begrudge them when there are about a hundred ways to phrase the more charitable reading of your statement that don’t have this point of pragmatic “ambiguity”? e.g. merely saying that “it’s a very accessible work artistically and that helped its popularity with a younger audience?”
That’s it. Reposting another comment where I responded to someone’s specific problem with my first one:
This is probably my last response on this topic, we’re at over 24 hours since the first comment now.
I will again invoke pragmatics, in that “if” in common language often reads as “only if,” or something very close to it, especially if there’s no context to encourage the other reading. I know that as a logical operator that’s not what it means, but you should be aware from your own experience that people frequently don’t use it as that logical operator.
Example: If you come to me with an idea and I say “That sounds like a good idea if you’re a complete idiot,” if we treat “if” as being the traditional operator, then this is not an insult because it could be that it sounds like a good idea to anyone, or a wide range of people, and complete idiots are just a specific demographic that I’ve arbitrarily chosen to name. However, pragmatically what I mean by this statement is closer to “That sounds like a good idea only if you’re a complete idiot,” which is obviously an insult.
So considered the reading “[this media] reads as really deep and interesting only if your media taste is still at that level”. Can you see why people might not take well to that? And how much can we begrudge them when there are about a hundred ways to phrase the more charitable reading of your statement that don’t have this point of pragmatic “ambiguity”? e.g. merely saying that “it’s a very accessible work artistically and that helped its popularity with a younger audience?”