Ah ok, I think one of the hardest things I've worked on is trying to defend/believe in my own good intentions. I had an ex who somewhat insinuated I was manipulating her and it almost broke me, because I started to believe it. The next day, I reflected and came to the belief (not answer) that if I can't defend my own good intentions, who the heck would? And have been working on this since, 7 or so years ago.
I guess I just think it's a really hard problem to definitively know whether I or someone else has such intentions and goals, so I often default to assuming that even if their or my behavior appears to be trying to manipulate, that underneath there may be something wanting mutual understanding, or actually, connection. I have seen so many conflicts resolve in my life when I have the courage to go deep enough to foster that connection. I got covid a few weeks ago and this woman called me weak and a baby and other things...then I found out a week later that she was struggling very hard with her relationship and broke up with her long-term boyfriend. So the name calling, which hurt and angered me in the moment, later revealed itself as stemming from deep pain she was feeling and maybe even the same language she was using towards herself as she struggled to make the decision.
So I just don't know how easy it is to figure out these intentions.
I've generally found that if someone accuses you of manipulating them, they're projecting. (By which I mean "projecting" in the sense in which psychologists use the term: the person senses the presence of a quality they don't like, but they don't want to admit to themselves that it's coming from them, so they project it onto someone else. In this case, your ex correctly sensed the presence of manipulativeness because she was actually the one being manipulative, but she didn't want to admit to herself that the manipulativeness she sensed was coming from her, so she projected it onto you.) So in the case of your ex, I would say she was engaging in bad faith communication (though possibly without consciously being aware she was doing so).
In the case of the woman you describe, I don't think she falls into either category we've been discussing. She was just expressing her own pain. I don't think every single human interaction has to fall within one of the two categories we've been discussing ("good faith communication" or "bad faith communication".)
Oh I agree with the projecting and I appreciate how you described it there, helped clarify it more for me.
> So in the case of your ex, I would say she was engaging in bad faith communication (though possibly without consciously being aware she was doing so).
I think it's mostly the label of "bad faith" that frustrates me. I don't like the communication techniques that she used, but I still question how it could be "bad faith" if she doesn't believe she's acting in bad faith. It's almost as if she believed I was communicating in bad faith. So bad faith communication is assuming the other is communicating in bad faith? I don't mean to run in circles, I really just don't think labeling communication as bad faith will help me resolve most conflicts.
> I think it's mostly the label of "bad faith" that frustrates me.
You can re-label it if you don't like the label. To me, if a person is trying to manipulate you, the label "bad faith" is not unjustified. But if that label doesn't work for you, pick another one.
> I still question how it could be "bad faith" if she doesn't believe she's acting in bad faith.
Because people's intentions and beliefs are not the same as their actions and the actual impact of those actions on others. It should be the case that if we have good intentions, we take good actions and our actions have good impact on others. But unfortunately it isn't always the case.
(Note also that I only said your ex "possibly" didn't realize that she was being manipulative. It's also quite possible that she did.)
> You can re-label it if you don't like the label. To me, if a person is trying to manipulate you, the label "bad faith" is not unjustified. But if that label doesn't work for you, pick another one.
Yes, I agree if the person is trying to manipulate you then it'd make sense to label their intentions as bad faith. I guess I choose to believe that people have good intentions even underneath their bad intentions because I feel more at ease and less afraid that way.
> Because people's intentions and beliefs are not the same as their actions and the actual impact of those actions on others. It should be the case that if we have good intentions, we take good actions and our actions have good impact on others. But unfortunately it isn't always the case.
I agree with you that good intentions, or as I'd say, intending to help someone, doesn't always equate to good results, or doesn't mean the person won't feel harmed. I think I get stuck on "bad faith" because from how I understand the phrase, and how the American Heritage Dictionary defines it[0], is "the malicious intention to be dishonest or to violate the law, as in negotiations over a contract." In other words, having bad intentions.
However, as I see the long article on Wikipedia, I'm just realizing that many fields seem to define it differently, from insurance law to Zen Buddhism, to feminism and negotiation theory[1].
EDIT: This has me reflecting on why I'm engaging in this thread. Am I trying to convince you and others that labeling "bad faith" will likely be more harmful and less effective in resolving conflict? If so, am I engaging in "bad faith" communication because I'm trying to convince you of my perspective and not fully understand your perspective? I think I feel very confident in resolving conflict and yet often slip back into such a mindset of trying to "teach" people things, instead of just letting them do what they want to do. In a way, this can be what trips me up the most: I believe I have found ways to communicate that can really help people in conflict, but instead of using those skills with people, I can default into teaching them those skills, even when they don't necessarily want to be taught. With that in mind, I find that some of these conversations on conflict resolution technique frustrate me because it seems that we, the ones who talk about them, often feel very confident in our approaches and may try to convince the others to do it the way that seems to work for us, even if the others don't want to learn.
This thread has helped me realize how I want to get much more intentional about explicitly asking people if they want to learn how I approach conversations and conflict, and creating environments where that consent is more clear to everyone, and in the other spaces doing the skills rather than talking about them.
Was this "bad faith" communication on my part? I think my intention is good in wanting to help people feel more confident in communicating in conflict and resolving it. But perhaps the effect matters more and I still feel lost on the approach they take in their article and maybe that's OK. I keep trying to remind myself: more loving, less saving. I think I have a tendency to jump in and "save" people when they don't necessarily want to be saved.
Anyways, I'm grateful that you went back and forth with me on this and I feel excited to much more express how I'm feeling and how I approach things and explicitly say how it's OK if other people want to do it different ways.
> Am I trying to convince you and others that labeling "bad faith" will likely be more harmful and less effective in resolving conflict?
Possibly, but trying to convince other people by making reasoned arguments is good faith communication, not bad faith communication.
> If so, am I engaging in "bad faith" communication because I'm trying to convince you of my perspective and not fully understand your perspective?
Good faith communication doesn't require you to "fully understand" the other person's perspective. Nor does it preclude trying to convince the other person of your perspective. See above.
I guess I just think it's a really hard problem to definitively know whether I or someone else has such intentions and goals, so I often default to assuming that even if their or my behavior appears to be trying to manipulate, that underneath there may be something wanting mutual understanding, or actually, connection. I have seen so many conflicts resolve in my life when I have the courage to go deep enough to foster that connection. I got covid a few weeks ago and this woman called me weak and a baby and other things...then I found out a week later that she was struggling very hard with her relationship and broke up with her long-term boyfriend. So the name calling, which hurt and angered me in the moment, later revealed itself as stemming from deep pain she was feeling and maybe even the same language she was using towards herself as she struggled to make the decision.
So I just don't know how easy it is to figure out these intentions.