When they talk scandal. With some all goes contrariwise: their No is Yes, and their Yes No. If they speak ill of a thing it is the highest praise. For what they want for themselves they depreciate to others... some, to avoid praising what's good, praise what's bad, and nothing is good for him for whom nothing is bad.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
Some people must be read in reverse, because their words run contrary to their meaning. Their no is a yes and their yes a no; they run down the thing they secretly want so that others will overlook it, and they praise the worthless to avoid praising the good. With such a person, taking the words at face value leads you exactly wrong, and the skill is to decode the speaker before you respond to the sentence. There is also a practical companion in the title: knowing when to change the conversation, especially when it turns to scandal, because staying in it costs you whether you join or merely listen. Read who you are dealing with, translate their contrariness, and steer the exchange away from the ground where nothing they say means quite what it appears to on the surface.
Practice
- Decode the contrary speaker before answering their words; with some, the no is a yes and the disparagement is a secret desire (maxim 25 reads the intent behind the words too).
- Watch for the person who runs down what he wants and praises what is worthless; translate the reversal rather than taking it at face value.
- Know when to change the conversation, especially when it turns to scandal; steering away costs less than staying in, whether you speak or only listen.
Use this when
- Use this with people you know to speak contrariwise; their plain words are a code, and answering the surface leads you wrong.
- Use the conversation-changing skill in any exchange turning toward gossip or a trap; the graceful redirection is a real tool (maxim 228 keeps you off the scandal).
Ignore this when
- Don't assume everyone speaks in reverse; most people mean roughly what they say, and reading codes into plain speech is its own error.
- Don't use decoding as licence for manipulation; reading a contrary speaker is defence and understanding, not a way to trap them.
A picture of it
Reading one counterpart entirely in reverse, a negotiator learns that the terms he loudly disparages are the ones he wants most, and his warm praise of a clause is a sign it is worthless to him. Taken at face value, his words would steer her exactly wrong; decoded, they become a map of his real priorities. When the talk drifts toward scandal about a mutual contact, she also knows to change the subject rather than join or even listen, because both would cost her. Reading the man beneath the words, and steering the ground they meet on, gets her a better deal than answering a single sentence he actually said.
With some, the words are a code: No means Yes, and praise means contempt. Read the person, translate the reversal, and know when to change the subject.