There's something I run into consistently in my life, and I keep trying to figure out how to express it clearly. It's a principle, or, anyway, an abstract pattern, a phenomenon.

Let me use an example. On April 16, 2007, I was just leaving my Nervous Systems & Behavior class in the psychology building when I saw other students sprinting across the green. Moments later, before I'd gotten ten feet past the door, we were called back inside. To make a long story short, there was a mass shooting two buildings away, in the engineering building. This was at Virginia Tech. I didn't personally know anyone attacked or killed (33 died, and 17 others were wounded), but everyone I knew knew someone. It was still kind of traumatic to be so close. The campus smelled like blood. I'm not kidding. I think I had some PTSD for much of the next year. It was the worst stretch of insomnia I've ever experienced. But that's another story. And I was extremely lucky my scrapes were so minor when people lost their lives, their close family members, best friends, favorite teachers.

The point is, I heard a lot of people saying loud and clear that this act was atrocious, evil, inhuman, etc. The particular words you use are a matter of preference. It isn't that I disagree. I just don't really believe in evil as a vile force that exists to counteract good; I believe in nature, cause and effect, feelings, ethics, positive or negative growth, science, learning, deficiencies, mistakes, illnesses, humanity, sentience, etc. But I will agree these acts were the kind we call "evil." No question. Absolutely, I understand the meaning of the word, the feeling, and the necessity it's about. I understand the disgust and horror because I felt those also.

But... I don't see the point of saying what was said as much as it was being said. Everyone knows that murder is bad. No one is confused on that point. Even the "evil" guy in this incident, the perpetrator, was not confused on that point, insofar as he knew perfectly well that everyone else considered murder bad. If you'd said to him the things people were saying after his mass shooting and suicide, he wouldn't have been surprised, and wouldn't have learned anything. So... assuming that's accurate (it might not be, I suppose), why does everyone insist on repeating these things everyone knows?

It just feels weird to me, and upsetting, and off-putting. Am I expected to join in, become part of the chorus of people sayings things everyone knows? Or assigning them an interpretation that reality may not support? It feels ritualistic. I felt like I was in a cult. This has happened at various times. I felt the same way about 9/11.

With everyone saying things like "unimaginable" and "it's impossible to understand" and so on, I feel like pushing back. Unimaginable? I mean, it happened. We were on campus. I was two buildings away. Some were in the same building. Unimaginable? I knows it's a figure of speech, but it's really stretched very far sometimes. Imagine that you think you are in Hell, and the people around you are really demons. Or imagine that you think this world is so absolutely terrible that death can only be a favor. Or imagine feeling ultra-out-of-control-angry and feeling deep down that certain people are wrong and responsible and deserve to die, and maybe you'll be the one to make that happen. The only trouble is in this scenario you're delusional, and so when you make that happen, you carry out evil that no one can understand or even imagine. So... that was easy. We could come up with other angles, too. Unimaginable?

It might seem or feel suspicious to say what I'm saying (I'm uncomfortable with these thoughts, thankfully less so now than then), but I have no inclination to go and shoot people. I am not a violent, aggressive, or even very competitive person. I like calm and quiet and peace and love and understanding. I like to be gentle with people and genuinely enjoy kindness and helping others. But in a sense readily apparent to me, I can't even take credit for that. It's just how I am, how I tend or prefer to be as much as possible. Of course I'll find such images horrifying. I was somewhat traumatized. And it wasn't because of fear for myself. It had nothing to do with worry that a mass shooter would kill me. It had everything to do with the sickness of the person who committed that act, and with walking around - for weeks, months on end - a campus that felt like a giant and constant funeral. It was devastating. And that was primarily because it was devastating to others.

But I find it completely uninteresting and hardly worth saying that what he did was bad. Of course it was bad. Who on earth is confused about that point? I repeat: he would not have been surprised to hear you say that. So for whom are you saying it? (Do you believe that emphasizing his intrinsic villainy would persuade people who might be on the fence, who might be just about ready to snap and shoot people, to listen to you and the moral light of your anger? I actually suspect you push those people away from the light, not toward it. Making it clear that you refuse to understand someone is not usually what gets them to think you're pretty cool and worth listening to. But I could be wrong.)

On two levels it's clear: first of all, people are understandably upset, and second, everyone wants other people to know they are nothing like this person. The group draws together and shakes down any who might be similar to the culprit. If you say a word in the evil person's favor or defense, show any hint of sympathy or understanding, that automatically makes you suspicious - more suspicious than someone who will keep repeating "unimaginable" and the like. Do you see what I mean? From my wallflowerish hanging-back-from-the-spotlight perspective, it feels as if everyone is saying something that does not need to be said, and the intention is actually to communicate "I am one of us, not one of them." These moments have always struck me as virtue signaling, since well before I had ever heard that phrase.

But what this means is... since I find it uninteresting and not worthwhile, in general, to say "shooting innocent people to death for no reason is really bad" because everyone already knows this, the thing I might find worth saying could seem contrarian at best and quite easily sinister: it's making me feel crazy to hear blindingly obvious (or else deficient) phrases repeated so much, bouncing around everywhere. Maybe what I would want to say would be some adjustment to what others are saying - perhaps some way they're exaggerating, perhaps showing gaps in their knowledge. If someone calls a shooter "inhuman," I feel like pushing back. No, the shooter is not inhuman. Clearly. If they say that person deserves no sympathy of any kind, I might point out that the shooter might have gotten a brain tumor, or a freak virus, or just been born with zero capacity for empathy. It doesn't really help to refuse to understand that this event happened as part of a natural set of factors and conditions in cause-and-effect relationships. In our eagerness to show that we're the good ones, we want to establish how bad the bad ones are, and we try to do this by removing every possible aspect of good about them, or even of coherency and nature. But that is all false. Everyone has something good about them, everything someone chooses has some sort of coherency with respect to how they understand the situation, and there is nothing that's ever happened that is truly unnatural.

I really, really don't like feeling critical of the good people for the way they talk. I don't like wondering if I'm one of the bad people - or wondering if I'm seen that way - simply because I'm seeing these flaws in how people are apprehending and dealing with a situation. Yes, we're all agreed this should never have happened. Something should have prevented it. We need to figure out how to prevent it better in the future. It can't be allowed to keep happening. We can't learn nothing. We can't wipe our hands of it and say "I didn't make the evil choice. It's the shooter's fault. It's all their fault. They're the only ones who can do anything about their bad choices. But we have to pay the price." That isn't good enough. Yes, people are responsible for what they do. But that is not the end of the story. It is not the last word on the matter. The fact remains that the good people have to anticipate, prevent, or intercept evil. The last person you want to trust to make the right decision about whether to go to school and shoot innocent people is the person who will do that. They are not the ones to expect to do better. Maybe that's a little counterintuitive. But when someone kills others and then kills themselves, all that gut-level feeling that they need to be blamed for what they've done is perfectly irrelevant.

I'm not sure why this is so blazingly, dazzlingly, sparklingly, ghostingly obvious to me, and so un-obvious to most people. But it makes me uneasy. And I feel I can't speak openly about these thoughts, for fear of being taken the wrong way.

I suppose many people have similar fears, and so they just go along with the crowd and say the usual things to let everyone know what side they're on, to avoid looking suspicious.

I've spent a shocking amount of time and effort in my life trying to work any old thing I write into a form that feels perfectly natural, not show-offy, not precious, not stiff or formal or condescending, but also not lazy, sloppy, smug, ignorant, cheesy, expected, etc. The reason I say this is... it hasn't worked. All that striving, and I still come across the wrong way, and no one really wants to read my stuff.

There's a survey prompt I've seen mentioned in several write-ups as an example of hostile sexism: "I believe that women are going too far." If the response indicates some level of agreement with this statement, that's a sign not only of sexism, but specifically of hostile sexism.

I took a course in psychological measurement via written tests (psychometrics) in college as part of my psychology degree, so I understand how that question can be useful without being definitive or fully reliable itself. However, every time I encounter that prompt, it gives me pause.

It's clear that an enthusiastic "Yes! Exactly! You said it!" would be unsurprising from a chauvinist. Like all psychological questions, though, this one can be interpreted different ways. Personally, I can see interpretations of that statement that would lead to some tentative level of agreement corresponding to neither hostility nor prejudice. If I were to run into that question myself on a survey, I'd see what it was getting at, and I would put a neutral or a slight or moderate no, depending on how I was feeling and what was at the front of my mind. It's easy to interpret the question along the broad lines of public debate, side myself with fellow progressives, and say, "There's so much more to do! What do you mean going too far?"

At the same time, the question remains... a problem. After all, if any level of agreement with that statement at any time puts you into moral debt, then we are effectively all agreeing that women are above reproach. You might disagree with a woman, but if you disagree with women on anything, you are sexist. (The categorical assumption built into the statement is surely what justified it to the researchers, by the way, along with statistical results when they tried the test on participants, most likely undergraduates.) After all, who are you to disagree with 50.5% of humanity, sight unseen? You must be prejudiced.

Hopefully you can see my qualms with this question already, and I'm not coming across as sexist or defensive for raising the thought.

Ultimately, the tension is between how that statement adds to a hostile sexism score via psychometrics, on the one hand, and how a person might take it at face value when told in approximate terms how the test counts it, on the other hand. Not everyone will have taken a psychometrics course. I can easily see how that prompt, in the wild, might be misconstrued both by chauvinists ("See? You literally can't disagree with them on anything!") and by feminists ("You think women are going too far on this? That's literally a statement on a test for hostile sexism, and it says you're a hostile sexist.")

One of the things I have trouble fully understanding is how stingy most people are with their understanding of others. Is anyone really that difficult to understand? A while back I saw bits of an interview with Charles Manson in prison. Hm - was I going to find him totally impossible to understand? No, it turns out. What about inhuman? No. Entirely unrelatable? No. Did I fully understand his motives and what makes him tick? No. Would I propose that anyone do what he did? No. Do I hate him when he's contained and no danger to anyone? No.

Why is this confusing? It seems to confuse everyone!

Of course, there's no need for you to answer those the way I have. You can feel your own way. But the way I feel is not really a contradiction. It isn't scandalous, either, or - I think, or hope - harmful or wrong. The show Mindhunter illustrates this difference between how most people feel about criminals who could be seen as inhuman and evil, and how, say, a forensic psychologist might feel.

I think it's the whole excusing/condoning question. We're all afraid that if we show any sympathy, empathy, understanding, or compassion toward certain people, we will be promoting their wrongdoing, or helping them get away with it.

Is that actually how this works, though? People have always seemed, to me, hyper-paranoid about this "condoning" issue, to the point that they walk around unintentionally presenting themselves as ignorant. There is not much reason to be proud of ignorance, and even less reason to be proud of hatred, whoever the target of that might be. Sometimes anger is really justified and even hatred is entirely understandable. But lack of anger can also be justified, and lack of hatred can also be entirely understandable.

Neutralize a threat. Beyond that, there's little to no value added by hatred and refusal to understand (in my opinion, of course).

Pet peeve: the ease of readers declaring that sections of books have nothing to do with anything. People who love to say things like this will very, very occasionally add a "maybe I missed something," but as a rhetorical brush-off; they do not sincerely believe it, and are simply being sarcastic. It's an easy way to sound sharper and more worldly than a writer.

Listen, it's possible the author thought "what the hey" and tossed something into their little masterpiece that had nothing to do with anything. More likely, though, the author and the editor agreed it had significance (and some other readers too). Maybe the author didn't do a good enough job drawing this connection out, but the section is still connected. Alternatively, it's there for "replayability": they don't expect most people to catch it this time, but on a reread, you'll have an a-ha! Alternatively, you were simply asleep at the wheel earlier (or could it be that during the setup, you were convinced the setup had nothing to do with anything, and now you've doubled down?). Alternatively, perhaps you really could have figured out the relevance if you'd thought about it, but instead you decided to stroke your ego and call the author stupid and go about your day. The point is there are several very likely possibilities, only one of which - the least likely - is that the author thought "what the hey" and put random shit in what they worked so hard on.

I repeat: it isn't that it can't happen, that an author can't lose their own plot, or bury their own lead, or fail to dig enough to extract it from the rubble of construction. It happens. But it doesn't happen a quarter as much as readers proudly declare it has happened.

If another reader feels that section is connected and interesting, then the issue is probably you, I'm afraid. Not always. That other reader could be hallucinating. Or maybe they know more - or less. Or they're interested in that bit for independent reasons, and they're simply admiring the scenery, not worrying about or even noticing the fact it isn't pulling its own narrative weight, since they're busy enjoying it. But usually the shortfall will be with you. And we all run into that problem, and it's simply that some readers love to jump right on their soapbox and start blaming the writer when they didn't get something. The rest of us spend a minute and figure it out, and think dismissive readers are being stupid.

There's a push today to see and treat women and men as the same, that is to refuse to differentiate in most respects, and to take any evidence of past or present different treatment as malicious. In general this is noble. The arrow of progress is always essential, and basically any push is unbalanced and necessarily so: how would one accelerate to move without an imbalance of forces? But it's become worse than unfashionable to recognize that past societies genuinely understood women and men as being somewhat different, fulfilling somewhat different purposes.

That is, there was no malice - not necessarily, anyway - in the basic belief in a distinction. Typically they believed that God created two kinds of human, and two kinds of every animal, and these categories are discernible visually and in other ways, and function somewhat differently to somewhat different ends, with somewhat different strengths and weaknesses. There was a faith that God's work had intent, that every noticeable difference meant something, was part of the grand design, a design humans had better heed.

And even today, whether you believe in God or not, it would be difficult to deny that male and female match the description of slightly different formats from nature, the separation between those formats going back millions of years, sensitively tuned to the environment, to energy flows and efficiencies, to social cohesion, to life and death struggle, to survival. We can't deny that there's likely to be some sort of reason that men are usually taller than women, that women usually have breasts that are larger and capable of lactation, that women are less likely to become mass shooters or start armed conflicts as politicians, and so on. These patterns did not appear in a vacuum. They evolved according to untold millions of lives and deaths, births, relationships, hunts, stories, gifts, and so on.

The old societies understood something - took it for granted and ran with it, embellishing it, emboldening it, decorating it, canonizing it in mythology, reifying it in social networks - that remains partly true: men and women are not exactly the same. Sexual dimorphism indicates that nature "intended" (to the extent it intends) or "manifests" (to the extent that's the closest evolution gets to intention) a certain degree of functional distinction. There's a great deal of overlap between male and female. Some individuals hug the boundary or even cross it. And nature is infinitely inventive, so as soon as you think you've got it all worked out, you'll find out there's a new twist in the wool.

But I find myself unable to shake these thoughts, because they are so readily shaken off by many who would like to - or who desperately need to - see change. It's perhaps a common criticism of feminists that we end up denying biology, that we throw out science in favor of a social or moral agenda. I doubt that's true at large, but in many particular instances, it begins to seem true. Perhaps it's because science is still coded male, and science has a lot of institutional sexism left, and so girls and women might see themselves as not (naturally or personally) scientific, and perhaps by extension not expected to or not needing to argue along scientifically evidentiary lines. But act a certain way, and you'd better be ready to get described as acting that way yourself. Or perhaps there is no such pattern of less concern with scientific evidence among feminists driving home a point, and it appears only in the eye of a beholder.

Often words don't convey understanding fully, but rather deltas. You perceive how a person grapples with a topic or situation, and you home in on a particular shift you'd like to suggest in their approach or attitude or belief, so you say that. You cannot at the same time say everything that is also true. You speak to adjust. You give a tidbit. It cannot be complete. And so many of these pushes to advance society, to move away from restrictiveness, oppressiveness, ignorance, even hatefulness, are specific, targeted thoughts. They cannot address in a balanced way the larger picture. You do not steer a car by choosing a compass bearing in minutes and seconds of arc, or radians, but rather in tiny shifts to the current direction. "A tiny bit left" is a radically different statement from "31 degrees, 55 minutes, and 52 seconds east of south." In debates we often make statements close to the first kind, and very unlike the second. But if we aren't aware of this, sometimes we ourselves don't know that we're doing it, and we start to believe that "a tiny bit left" is an objective and complete description of the direction from here to Mt St Helens.

Maybe the best trick I've learned for writing, or creating anything, is that you can make something interesting from anything. If you're waiting for the perfect idea so that you can write your novel, it isn't you or the idea that's the problem, it's probably your approach. You can take literally anything around you and start spinning tales around it. They won't be good, you say? So make them good. Or start over. What's the loss? Stories start in the soul and pass through the heart, head, and hands.

If you don't believe this, how hard have you tried? It's like what Miles Davis said about music and improvisation: "There are no mistakes." Sure the concept exists, but he's also right. You can make something interesting from any sound. And if you approach music in that spirit, you almost can't help yourself. You will make music.

Take whatever comes to mind that's around you or in memory or whatever. Feel its significances for a moment. Now stick something else to it. Then do that again. You can do a lot of sculpting in your head. What's less interesting, you'll usually forget. What's more interesting, you'll probably remember. So don't freak out unnecessarily. But feel how you're gonna feel.

It's in exploring the spaces of potentials, and feeling what we feel in them as we ramble, and noting a few landmarks, and sticking things together, that we make what's worth making.

If you don't have the confidence to approach this as I suggest, then I suggest you try it anyway and keep at it for a bit. If it really isn't your thing, then you can do something else, take on another pursuit. But that's your decision. Don't let anyone tell you when to quit (unless they're directly involved). Sometimes quitting is best taken off the table. Sometimes you don't want to let you yourself tell you when to quit. It's an undefinable thing.

I have my own mental health troubles, but most humans seem unbalanced to me another way. They aren't perfectly happy with what someone's saying or doing, and they launch into character assassination and vendetta mode. It's as if all their life stress needs to vent on some person (whether a fool or a villain or just a regular neighbor or coworker or friend or family member) who isn't quite stacking up. They feel so justified going overboard, their poor judgment proudly blazing.

They remind me of barking dogs, and barking dogs remind me of them. It sounds so stupid when you step back even slightly from the drool and spittle and teeth-baring and throat sandpapering.

When I was in high school pretty much all my friends were coders, and they were all better than I was. One of my close friends had this elaborate graphics demo he was working on in all his stolen spare moments. It was brilliant and I envied his work ethic so much.

Maybe he didn't give me the thought, but he showed how real and tangible the thought could be. So I've spent the last 21 years trying to match my old friend and pick up his habit of working consistently on my own project, on my own steam. For many years it seemed impossible. About eleven years ago, I made this daily habits business my top priority, and I've put enormous amounts of effort into trying and failing countless approaches that seemed to streak off like rain off oilskin. Time-based consistency is the last thing in the world I'm good at. (If it's a cliché to attribute some of that to ADHD, ain't nothin' like a cliché you can't shake.)

Yet... I'm coding every day. The secret is the same as with writing. Every day. Not most days. Not absolutely perfectionistic streaks. Keep it simple: every day. Code every day. Mark on your wall calendar how much you got to: however much or little, or zero, mark it without fail. I started by crossing days off just as a reward for noticing them, a moment of mindfulness wrapped in a big yellow highlighter X, and expanded my calendar annotations from there, once that hook was in place for a few months. Now I count 30-minute timers and put the tally on the calendar. A dot is half an hour, a slash an hour. So 2.5 hours would be: "II." (dot included). If I then code another half hour, I amend my tally to: "III". Do it.

Two points of confusion show up often among progressives. Compulsion is not observation, and hypothesis is not morality. That is, it's one thing to say women cannot join the army, and quite another to say that more women than men seem to lack talent or inclination in that direction. Similarly, it cannot be immoral to hypothesize that a group might for evolutionary reasons (rather than solely cultural) be less inclined in a certain direction on average. Scientists cannot be forbidden from forming and considering hypotheses; if they are, it immediately ceases to be science. In short, we can have freedom AND individual differences; we can have science AND politeness and consideration. Break down either AND to insist on only one of that pair all the time, and we've messed up.

Maybe most decent people are still too judgmental for this kind of view to work so well for them, even if it's more on point. That is: I sometimes entertain the idea that groups aren't always as talented as each other in every respect, but I also often entertain the idea that they are, and regardless of the outcome, I'm not going to start hating on people. That is, if I believed all women were less able soldiers than all men (I know for a fact that isn't true, but if I did), I wouldn't convert that belief to being shitty and judgy and freedom-restricting. The same for any other supposed group difference. Buck a trend (or "trend"). Follow your dreams. Be who you want to be. Don't let me get in your way. And I'd like to be on your side.

I don't know the answers. But I do know that forbidding questions is unwise.

One progressive branch - many of the most committed feminists - has been doing a "who, me?" and wondering aloud what "cancel culture" could possibly mean and what could possibly be wrong with it. If you have to ask, that's good, and you have some learning lined up. Let's jump right in.

Ostracism is not a wonderful virtue. Many progressives have been acting as if it's both a wonderful virtue and a strict requirement.

I am not made more virtuous by lacking all compassion for a person who has done bad things, or even for a generally bad person. This would be understandable. It may occasionally even be useful. But it is not a wonderful virtue.

Cancel culture is the lie that claims it is.

It also implies that we're despicable if we do not join in hatred (when adequately justified). That's an especially disgusting lie (to me). But I have seen it before in an endless parade of forms. It hasn't suddenly cropped up in recent times.

Ethically, I'm a consequentialist and an existentialist. This puts me in a cultural and spiritual minority, but it certainly does not mean I don't care. To say that 1) freedom is the foundation of human rights (ie, we only restrict some freedoms for net-greater freedom, which could include a longer personal healthspan, more people functioning better, etc), 2) stark self-honesty and taking responsibility are the basis of morality (ie, there is no universal creed we have discovered, no list of commandments that is perfect, but whatever you do, that's what you did, and you'd better fully recognize it), and 3) good/bad actions are only good/bad because they bring good/bad results - does not imply amorality, immorality, moral relativism, or lack of empathy. I would say "quite on the contrary" to every mislabeling, but anyway, that's my belief system here, and something you may need to know to see my perspective.

To put the above another way, I do not believe that single actions define people; nor do I believe any person is evil, but rather some are more susceptible to certain kinds of misunderstanding and mistake; and finally, I do not believe actions (including "speech acts" with words and the "covert actions" called thoughts) are intrinsically evil if no harm is caused. Like many progressives, I believe that harm and health are the measure of morality, not appearances, not divine instructions, not even conscience or disgust, which are both based in primitive instinct. I'm willing to be a "bad feminist" for reasons I see as the right ones, ones that advance feminism and humanity. Like you, I observe and listen and make my best determination, and that's the best I can do. It's the best anyone can do.

It's very understandable, canceling people whose behavior you won't abide. Ostracism is a basic, evolved response, and it may be critical in some situations for self-protection. And it's a right you have. And in critiquing cancel culture, or ostracism-as-wonderful-virtue, I am talking about the views of great friends and even some family, people I love, people who share many of my values, progressive and otherwise. The lie is understandable. Very much so. But it is incorrect.

Understanding wrong action, understanding people who do the wrong things and in association with what factors, understanding how mistakes happen, and the wide variety of ways people can be mistaken, does not make you despicable. True understanding helps to solve the most difficult problems, and so does recognizing everyone's humanity. Cancel culture denies that these are true (where a certain level of anger and disgust has been reached), and it tries to forbid them.

Boycotting contingent on specific, clear, relatable, forward-looking demands is not only a solid idea, it's perhaps the best recipe for change. But boycotting contingent on specific, clear, relatable, forward-looking demands is not the same as pouring scorn and hatred on individuals forevermore, denying their humanity, and calling for everyone else to follow suit. You can do so, and you can call for it, but that is cancel culture, and it is not the same as the best recipe for change.

Deterrents are sometimes necessary. Which deterrents are most effective and humane needs more and better research. The best response to any threat is neutralizing it via the most advanced understanding. It would be a poor substitute for understanding to mount an eyeball-equivalent or gut-equivalent offensive. Counterattacks and deterrents often don't work the way we think they should. They can fail, they can backfire by paradoxically encouraging, they can vaguely or intensely undermine respect for a group or the law or reason or empathy or society at large, or they can simply be inefficient.

So, if you didn't know what could possibly be seen as wrong with cancel culture, now you know.

Pointing out that conservatives also cancel people is whataboutery. Yes, they do, and maybe more people, and even worse, especially where racism and other prejudices are concerned. That doesn't change the equation. (If you made a late credit payment, that doesn't mean I paid mine on time.) Cancel culture is still objectionable on reasonable grounds.

I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and if you're like me, neither will you.

Being progressive doesn't make us perfect. Trends will not automatically be right, let alone in all ways, even though they make sense, even though a trend and much moving and rearranging along those lines is urgently needed.

A lot of the time, people don't want truth, they want to be entertained or to seem mighty. The trouble is I'm not talking about their taste in fiction. I'm talking about core life choices.

Truth isn't just what you want it to be, or what you can construe. Finding the truth and facing it down are often drastically harder than persuading someone.

Everyone thinks they know the truth. What's the difference? Some do. Why? Usually because they're less certain. They keep checking. They take every objection seriously. They want to know.

These people are less persuasive, but that's everyone else's fault. Their approach should be more persuasive, not less.