Actions speak louder than words. In economics, there is an idea called “revealed preferences,” in which a consumer’s preferences are inferred from their economic choices. Both concepts assert that a person’s behavior can be better evidence of a person’s beliefs than their words.
But what if words are all we have? Must we take the speaker, well, at their word? Or can we learn something useful from their words, independent of their content?
It seems obvious the answer is yes.
Consider a debate in which one person riles up their opponent and then accuses the opponent of being “triggered.” It seems obvious that anyone who does that is less interested in the merits of the debate than they are in humiliating their opponent. Thus, the mere use of the word “triggered” in this way suggests something about the speaker, namely that they are a bully.
As another example, many people have recently spent much more time and energy criticizing anti-racism protests for being violent and uncivil then they have criticizing racism itself. Based on that, it seems reasonable to infer that such people don’t care as much about racism as they might otherwise claim.
I recently posted on Facebook asking if anyone knew of a generalizable way to describe this idea. I was motivated in part by the fact that I’d recently gotten into many debates with people who were unintentionally revealing all sorts of things about themselves, and wanted a succinct way of pointing that out to them. The closest everyday term for what I was trying to get at was a “tell,” as used in poker, or as used in the phrase, “it is telling that.”
A friend suggested a general rule: Where one focuses one’s attention reveals one’s true intention. That was a remarkably accurate and generalizable summary of the phenomenon I was trying to describe, so I’ve decided to call it Sara’s Law in my friend’s honor.
Referencing the second example, another friend pointed out that one way of describing what is happening there is that such people are “betraying themselves.” That, in turn, reminded me of the DJ Khaled meme where he scolds someone who’s revealed their own weakness or stupidity by saying, “Congratulations, you played yourself.” So, in honor of that meme, I’ve decided to call an instance where someone’s choices about what to focus on says something about them they’d rather keep hidden “Khaled’s Tell.”
Sara’s Law, then, is the general rule that one’s choices about what to focus on in one’s speech or writing reveals one’s true nature, intentions, beliefs, etc. Khaled’s Tell is when one inadvertently reveals something about oneself that one would rather keep hidden by operation of Sara’s Law.
Below are some suggested usage examples.
- There is a person in my neighborhood who’s been posting a lot about the history of various local buildings and landmarks. None of it is political. It’s all just interesting historical facts about the neighborhood that he somehow either knows or has researched. The only apparent reason he does it seems to be that neighborhood folks love his posts. By operation of Sara’s Law, we might infer, among other things, that the poster is a mensch.
- Someone who says “all lives matter” falls victim to Khaled’s Tell. Given that the phrase “Black lives matter” is rooted in the observation that, as things stand, society does not value Black lives as much as it does non-Black lives, saying “all lives matter” reveals the speaker to be someone who disagrees with that observation–which, given the evidence, is at least ignorant.
- Using the word “triggered” against another is a surefire Khaled’s Tell that someone is a bully.
- Sara’s Law can reveal a journalist’s or news organization’s political biases, and they may fall victim to Khaled’s Tell based on what they choose to cover and how.
- Governments and politicians can fall victim to Khaled’s Tell based on where they choose to focus official speech.
Notes:
- By definition, Khaled’s Tell refers to undesired revelations. If one is open about what is being revealed–e.g., if a news organization is open about being conservative–one hasn’t fallen victim to Khaled’s Tell.
- One can fall victim to Khaled’s Tell through the improper use of Khaled’s Tell. For example, if one draws an inference against another unsupported by the behavior, that can say more about the person drawing the inference than the person against whom the inference is being drawn.
- Applying Sara’s Law to this post, and the obsessive amount of thought that’s gone into it, one can reasonably infer that I have a tendency to be infatuated with my own ideas. But because I admit that, that doesn’t fit the definition of Khaled’s Tell.
- In the context of a debate, pointing out that someone has fallen victim to Khaled’s Tell when the thing that is being revealed–e.g., that the person is not all that bright–doesn’t bear on the merits, is an ad hominem. So just because someone has fallen victim to Khaled’s Tell doesn’t mean they’re wrong.