Wrong in general

Of the variety of ways that we exaggerate, distort, delete, obfuscate and in general screw up communication, probably one of the most deleterious is generalizations. On vacation I did a lot of reading a talking. Surprise! I had the most trouble dealing with generalizations. I was trying to be fair and balanced, so I watched some Fox news and read several conservative blogs. Whereupon I reflected on the havoc generalizations can cause.
Which reminds me of a story. I was invited to a home with two teen age boys. The whole family was doing a lot of fighting and not relishing the conflict. I went to live with them for a week. Within two hours of my arrival the boys began to argue loudly and warmly. I was invited to magically stop them. So I did.
I did it by simply getting them to agree that whenever they used the words always or never, they had to pay a quarter into a pot. It was considered cheating by finding synonyms like "invariably" or "habitually" or "you have the habit of."
By the end of the week, everyone was laughing and amazed at how often they were fined. The interruption of generalization fractured most of the fights and made the fights they had more real, about current concerns.
Look at what a generalization does. It brings the energy and pain of the past into the present and overloads the emotional tenor of the conversation. It also accuses the person with whom you are arguing of either refusing to or incapable of change. They "always" whatever. "Always have, are now and always will be." It's a grammatical curse.