Meta-ok and Meta-right

[jack]

I'm not sure if this is the best terminology, but I found it useful to have a name for the concept at all. I'd like one that was clear to people other than me :)

The idea is, "meta-right" means "the right decision given the information available, which may or may not have been correct omnisciently". Like:

Q. I put the colander in the utensils cupboard, was that right?
A. That was meta-right. [ie. it actually goes in the pan cupboard but I didn't expect you to know that, and thank you for helping tidy up, I'm glad you helped and took sensible guesses]

Q. I gambled on X, but it actually came up Y. Do you think that was meta-right?
A. I'm not sure, do you think you had any way to know, or was X your best guess?

Similarly, "meta-ok" when you ask if something is ok. Eg.

Q. Is it ok I was late home?
A. It was meta-ok.

Meaning, it's ok that you're late home SOMETIMES, and this time was no worse than any other time. But it's not necessarily ok if you're ALWAYS late home.

But is there a better way of describing this?

Comments

[redbird]

The problem with meta-right is that, at least in your first example, my reaction would be, depending on mood, "where do you keep it?" or "why aren't you answering the question?" Because "that was meta-right" could mean anything from "it actually goes in the pan cupboard" to "That is where I keep it, but I was leaving it out for a reason" and doesn't tell the person what you'd like them to do next time. (That's a best case, in which the person you're talking to has never lived with someone who passive-aggressively punished them for not being telepathic.)

And with the second, I would much rather know whether someone means "it was okay this time, but I'd rather it doesn't be a pattern" or "you didn't do anything wrong, but it turned out I really would have liked you home earlier, because I needed help with something."

They might be useful labels inside your head/for your own behavior, but I suspect they're not going to be very useful for communicating with other people. That's about how I feel about the word "over-reacting": it's sometimes okay to use reflexively, to tell myself or even other people "I think I am over-reacting here, maybe I should sit down and have something to eat" or to think that someone's reaction is probably about some other issue, but telling someone "you're over-reacting" is likely to make the situation worse whether or not it is in some sense a true statement because it is dismissive and asserts that the speaker is a better/more objective judge of the situation.