You _can_ get a fairly accurate sense of how people are feeling or what they are thinking, and some people are better at this than others. Call it intuition, body language, or whatever else, it doesn't inherently make it arrogance. Being mindful of how you could be incorrect in what, at the end of the day, are assumptions that require confirmation, is important; without this is where the true arrogance lies.

I think assuming how people feel and what people are thinking without asking them, giving them agency, is nearly the very pinnacle of arrogance. further, this can be some of the most damaging behavior you participate in on a daily basis, both to you and to the person you do it to.

I cannot overstate how toxic to your relationships and to yourself this behavior is. You need to let people express themselves, and listen when they do. That's about as close to a "prime directive" I can think of right now, when it comes to human interaction.

I find your reaction to this pretty toxic, tbh. Stop trying to assert your dogma and actually practice what you preach.

No one is saying that they are making assumptions for others or not allowing them to express themselves. But if you deny that you are prejudiced, you're going to end up imposing your own will on others because you continue to suffer from your predisposition without being cognizant of how that affects them.

I am talking about the people who are making assumptions for others and therefore not allowing them to express themselves.

If you want to talk about groups of people doing things other than this, why did you create two new accounts to reply to me?

I believe you're one of the people I'm talking about, and I don't think you're taking it very well to find out some folks think of you as arrogant.

I'm not surprised you find that, "pretty toxic, tbh", but I stand by what I said. You're not the first "empathetic" person I've talked to who gets unreasonably upset at the notion that their perceived good trait is actually a negative trait.

You are right that assuming you completely understand another person’s mind can cause (serious) problems in your relationship with them. But people also “tell you how they feel” with more than just words. So it’s not as simple as “ignore everything but the spoken or written word”.

My point is you need to let people express themselves, rather than assuming their emotional state from body language or other subtle cues.

People often decide how to feel, and we need to let them.

How you react to something is just as important as how you say you feel after the fact. People do judge and form opinions on your behavior as well as your thoughts. Wishing it was otherwise is the real arrogance in this scenario.

I'm all for letting people figure out how they feel about things, but sometimes we don't have the luxury of time and we need to interpret in the moment. This will happen no matter what as long as we have a biological form, and pretending otherwise serves no one.

You're arguing "is", I'm arguing "ought". They're unrelated.