Communication 101: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

[Blade]

For me it is harder to communicate online than in person. In person one can see my expression and feed off of body language. A few years back I said something like "you go girl" or "I hear ya girl" something like that to someone online and she came unglued. I was stunned. Later someone who knew me in RT explained to me that she knows I used that phrase all the time, but to this other femme it was like an insult. So just using this as an example I had to almost learn to communicate online like a different language.

I've also had people clean my clock over a post, where they interpreted what I said way differently than was my intent. We are not from the same places, or families, or had the same lifes experiences. Therefore we don't communicate the same way to begin with. Probably communication is a learned behavior, unless it is something you have worked on personally as an adult.

I had never heard of passive-aggressive in my life until the forums....chuckling of course there are many words I'd never heard of before internet. Most of those words are labeling words which a large majority of us say we hate labeling words.

Funny thing is now with a little online experience under my belt...well yeah I still stumble sometimes and get questioned about the way I've worded something, but the funny thing is how I see newbies come on and watch some of them post and the whole time I'm thinking OOoooo I bet so and so is about to clean their clock. Why do I not clean their clock or call them out. Well it's just not in my nature to be combative to begin with. To be honest I'm just not that sensitive about others words.

To me tone and body language mean a lot. I don't talk loud, I don't yell at people and it is rare that I use a hateful tone of voice. I do believe you have to have a certain respect for your audience and they for you. If you don't have a certain respect you've lost your audience from the beginning, which possibly means you have both potentially lost out.

Anyway just my .02 worth

[Just_G]

Originally Posted by Nat

It sounds like you stumbled across a source of shame for her. If somebody told me I was an aggressive communicator, I would be all ears and want to know more. Or maybe she was being mean to you.

Nat, you hit the nail right on the head! I think that me being honest with her...in a very explanatory way (that's the passive communicator in me..always trying to explain everything..see?) was taken as me being snarky. I hate that it was taken that way, but like Blade said, it is hard to communicate via written word as opposed to spoken word.

One thing that has really helped me to not get defensive in situations like this is that I will read whatever it is in several different ways/tones. Once I do that, I don't have that knee-jerk reaction...instead, I am coming from an understanding place. Not all people do that.

She is the one that told me she doesn't like the way I communicate or respond in conversations...I could have taken that the wrong way and pulled in to my turtle shell; but I didn't. Instead, I have ordered a couple of books on how to communicate better. Even though what she said kind of hurt my feelings, I took it to heart and really thought about it. I am trying to better myself in this area. I am trying to grow from what she told me.

Her reaction to what I said was the complete opposite and she is now in HER turtle shell....still not speaking to me. I guess I should take this for what it is and just keep myself moving forward. If she wants to talk; I now know that I need to handle it with extreme caution. Lesson learned.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by Just_G

Nat, you hit the nail right on the head! I think that me being honest with her...in a very explanatory way (that's the passive communicator in me..always trying to explain everything..see?) was taken as me being snarky. I hate that it was taken that way, but like Blade said, it is hard to communicate via written word as opposed to spoken word.

One thing that has really helped me to not get defensive in situations like this is that I will read whatever it is in several different ways/tones. Once I do that, I don't have that knee-jerk reaction...instead, I am coming from an understanding place. Not all people do that.

She is the one that told me she doesn't like the way I communicate or respond in conversations...I could have taken that the wrong way and pulled in to my turtle shell; but I didn't. Instead, I have ordered a couple of books on how to communicate better. Even though what she said kind of hurt my feelings, I took it to heart and really thought about it. I am trying to better myself in this area. I am trying to grow from what she told me.

Her reaction to what I said was the complete opposite and she is now in HER turtle shell....still not speaking to me. I guess I should take this for what it is and just keep myself moving forward. If she wants to talk; I now know that I need to handle it with extreme caution. Lesson learned.

Hi Just G

Given that I don't know your friend or the history or the context or anything else about this conversation, please take this with a gigantic grain of salt.

However, what I see purely from what you've written is that you want to communicate....you're trying to get better at it...you're taking feedback, finding resources.

Her reaction sounds like she doesn't actually want to communicate...even though what she's doing is talking (or writing).

People use words for a whole lot of reasons....communication is one....control is another.

In my family of origin there was a whole lot of talking, and very little actual communication. Words were used to control, to wound, to keep people in their designated roles, etc. I'm really cautious around people who talk but rarely listen, or who can never be wrong. If someone can't say "wow...I didn't realize I was coming across that way"....then I tend to think they're talking for reasons other than communication.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by Blade

I've also had people clean my clock over a post, where they interpreted what I said way differently than was my intent. We are not from the same places, or families, or had the same lifes experiences. Therefore we don't communicate the same way to begin with. Probably communication is a learned behavior, unless it is something you have worked on personally as an adult.

Blade, I think this is really key. All of us come from a different history and context...when you say "buddy" you may mean a friend....when I say "buddy" you better look out. Small stuff, but important.

I think knowing where people come from is critical to really understanding them...especially if you're talking about emotionally charged stuff. Honestly, I've worked on communication (along with other issues) in counseling for years....and I still trip over it almost daily with Scoote....who is someone that I love dearly. If it's still that tricky with someone I love and live with...imagine how challenging it is when the relationship is more distant, or the communication is going out into the universe without benefit of body language and tone.

[Just_G]

Originally Posted by JustJo

Hi Just G

Given that I don't know your friend or the history or the context or anything else about this conversation, please take this with a gigantic grain of salt.

However, what I see purely from what you've written is that you want to communicate....you're trying to get better at it...you're taking feedback, finding resources.

Her reaction sounds like she doesn't actually want to communicate...even though what she's doing is talking (or writing).

People use words for a whole lot of reasons....communication is one....control is another.

In my family of origin there was a whole lot of talking, and very little actual communication. Words were used to control, to wound, to keep people in their designated roles, etc. I'm really cautious around people who talk but rarely listen, or who can never be wrong. If someone can't say "wow...I didn't realize I was coming across that way"....then I tend to think they're talking for reasons other than communication.

I never really thought about words being controlling in this situation until I read what you just wrote. I am really learning a lot from what you all have to say, and I really appreciate all the input I am getting.

I think you are absolutely right about using words to control people/situations. I have always cowered and apologized for things I have said...when deep down inside, I knew that my input was neither right or wrong, it was just a discussion, but I felt beat down and that what I had to say didn't matter. Well, what I have to say DOES matter, and I am trying to break out of that shell. Before if she would have asked me which style of communication she used, I would have answered with what she wanted to hear. That would have been sugar coating or worse yet, letting her control how I answered the question. When I think back to some of the heated discussions we got into, I really did feel whipped and she would dominate me and the conversation.

I am starting to say how I think and feel. Perhaps she feels she is losing that control that I KNOW she had over me. I am by no means trying to "win" or "get back" at her by any means. I want to be able to go back and have some of the discussions we had in the past. I think rather than sitting back and not saying anything, or just agreeing with her, I would actually be able to better engage without my thoughts causing a log jam between my mind and my mouth because I feel intimidated.

[Linus]

I just finished reading this piece by a SI sports writer: http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-21/o...?_s=PM:OPINION It's worthwhile to read, whether you like sports or not. It's about how anonymity on the Net (in this case Twitter) changes how people talk to others, especially those they disagree with.

[JustJo]

Originally Posted by Just_G

I have always cowered and apologized for things I have said...when deep down inside, I knew that my input was neither right or wrong, it was just a discussion, but I felt beat down and that what I had to say didn't matter. Well, what I have to say DOES matter, and I am trying to break out of that shell. Before if she would have asked me which style of communication she used, I would have answered with what she wanted to hear. That would have been sugar coating or worse yet, letting her control how I answered the question. When I think back to some of the heated discussions we got into, I really did feel whipped and she would dominate me and the conversation.

I am starting to say how I think and feel. Perhaps she feels she is losing that control that I KNOW she had over me. I am by no means trying to "win" or "get back" at her by any means. I want to be able to go back and have some of the discussions we had in the past. I think rather than sitting back and not saying anything, or just agreeing with her, I would actually be able to better engage without my thoughts causing a log jam between my mind and my mouth because I feel intimidated.

Hi Just G

Not sure how I missed this post until today, but amen! This is exactly what I have done (and still do, and did again last night). And, your image of the log jam between mind and mouth is spot on....except for me the log jam is between heart and mind. I can keep talking....I just stop feeling. Once I start feeling intimidated, shut out, ignored or controlled....I stop being emotionally engaged. In a relationship, whether friendship or more intimate, that's deadly.

I totally hear you...and wish I had better answers. If you find some, please share them with me, okay?

I'm dealing with a situation right now in which I feel like a function rather than an appreciated person that counts...and it's killing the emotional connection in the process.

Here's what I'm facing...I'm told to say what I want, what I feel, what I think...and when I do the result is that I'm either ignored or showered with anger. If I don't say what I want/feel/think....then it's my fault that I don't get what I need. If I do say what I need....it doesn't happen anyway and I get the deluge of fury as well.

For me, this isn't about communication....it's about control. As long as I stay in my appointed role and don't express any needs or desires...then all is well. If I express unhappiness, need, insecurity, fear, hurt, dissatisfaction, frustration...anything that is difficult for the other to deal with...then it is suddenly all my fault. Meanwhile....the others in the situation are allowed to express their needs/wants and have them met.

I end up in the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation in which I cannot get my needs met, and I do not count. It's a trap....an emotional one rather than a physical one....but still a trap.

Here's the irony...all of that can be going on underneath a mantra of "you're my dearest friend" or "I love you" or "I'm saying this because I care about you" or "fill in the blank." But the subtext is "shut up about what you need/want/feel."

And...I do shut up. I also shut down.

[Kobi]

The info in this thread has stuck with me all day. It points out how complex communication can be.....what is said or not said, what is asked or avoided, what is said and what is heard, how emotion complicates communication, how people pushing our buttons affect how we react, what can happen when words and behavior don't mesh etc.

One thing I always try and keep in mind, aside from the complexities of interpersonal stuff, is that the only thing I really have control over is me, what I say and how I say it, saying what I mean, being clear and concise, being willing to listen, compromise, negotiate etc.

I can't control what is heard or how one reacts to what I might say or do. I cant control their motives or intentions. If it is important to me, I might ask questions and try to get clarification. But, I try real hard not to let other peoples stuff become my stuff.

This reality has helped me to not take others folks stuff personally, to keep things in perspective, to lessen the potentially harmful emotions, and to be less attached to a specific outcome.

It has also helped me to keep the focus on the "issue" rather than the style, tone, volume, and other distracting things that occur in communications or that are used to hamper communication. There is nothing more empowering than to face something on ones own terms rather than on someone else's terms.

I have also learned that people having the same experience, can interpret it very differently. I can only control my experience. I cannot control different expectations, needs, assessments, beliefs, feelings etc.

One of the most important things I have learned is people always tell us stuff if we pay attention. What is said, not said, done, not done, shared, not shared are all very important messages if we are paying attention to the clues. What we choose to do with these messages is up to us....but ignoring them is never wise.

I have also learned, for the most part, I can choose what and who I allow in my life.... the people, the issues, the potential problems, the communication styles, the way I allow others to treat me etc. Sometimes I cant i.e. family, co-workers etc. But it is to my advantage and well being to be very careful as to who and what I allow in my life when I have the choice.

Sometimes people think this is a very self serving way to live, to basically orchestrate one's life for ones own benefit. Some even call it controlling.

To me, this seems to be a very self respecting way to live ones life. To live ones life on ones own terms, as much as possible...isnt that what it is all about? This doesnt mean one doesnt struggle with things. It does mean, to me, the difference between dealing with something head on versus the back door. And accepting whatever the outcome is.

Communication doesnt take place in a vaccum. It is the product of our experiences, our learning, our beings, perspectives, beliefs, values etc. Somethings make us feel comfortable, some make us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes we have to step out of our comfort zone to get to foster communication and gets answers. And sometimes those answers arent to our liking. This doesnt mean the other person isnt communicating well, it means they are saying something we might not want to hear.

I find it helps to listen to the many different ways people say things to us, even if they are saying something we dont like. if we do, we can make decisions and move along rather than get mired in the muck.

[Nat]

I was listening to a podcast today and found it so interesting that I went ahead and transcribed it as best I could. The reason I'm pasting it here is because I think some of the issues we run into on the site may involve issues of the group mind vs the individual.

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Transcribed from Philosophy Bites podcast "Philip Pettit on Group Agency"

"I think of group agents as a subspecies of groups in general. There are groups - their members will have a property in common and so-on, but the feature that makes them a group agent is that they mimic an individual agent in how they behave.

If you take a small group like the three of us - suppose we constitute a group perhaps that meet every evening for a drink. Now in order to constitute a group agent, what would have to be the case that there is some goal or purpose that we together want to advance or further, and equally we form shared views about the best means to advance this goal, about the opportunities, about the sub-goals, about the order of importance, about the sub-goals - and of course we're going to form views about changing the goal, about adding to the goal. We've got to as a group, the three of us, organize ourselves in order to advance a purpose according to certain accounts of how best to advance that purpose. We've got to do together what we all do individually to pursue a goal.

Groups obviously vary enormously in size and enormously in structure. The three of us could be a group. We could develop some political purposes, for example, we're speaking on advancing the green agenda in Oxford. So that's the big goal we might agree on. We then would want sub-goals: what are the important aspects of the green agenda? Keeping the streets clean, keeping the waters clean? We've got to decide on all of these, and then with these things we've got to decide what do we do? Together we've got to agree on an agenda of what we do and a means of doing it, which is just what I as an individual would do if I decided on my own to pursue a green agenda.

There's quite a dominant tradition that says, look, it's just a fashion of speaking to talk about a group as an agent - they are just individual human beings who are agents and they coordinate their actions together. And at a certain level that's true, but it misses something very important, which is: When you ask, "What's the relationship between the goal of a group or the goal or beliefs or the the judgments of the group and the judgments of individuals?" People who take the view that groups are just individuals, they will always answer, "Well, the goals which the group holds - they just answer to the views held by the majority of the members."

When you begin to see what's wrong with that, you get an introduction as to why group agency is an interesting topic.

Let me serve it to you abstractly: Suppose the three of us are involved in having to make a set of judgments and decisions because we want to mimic an individual agent. As we agree, we have to put together our judgments on various matters and also our desires, self-preferences. Suppose for example we've got to put together our judgments on matters like the matter of whether P is the case and the matter of whether Q is the case. The issue is whether then the conjunction of P and Q is the case.

So, it comes to the matter of whether we as a group believe P, guys? Well, here beside me I have David and Nigel. Let's suppose that I think P is the case and David things P is the case, so that's the majority. So Nigel doesn't think P is the case, but that's okay - as a group we believe P.

Okay, then it comes to Q. We vote on Q. It turns out I think that Q also is the case as well as P. David this time rejects it - he doesn't think Q is the case. But you, Nigel, accept that Q is the case. Ah, majority ticked off Q - the group believes Q.

We believe P, we believe Q. Does the group believe P and Q? Ah. The majority rejects P and Q, because I'm the only one who believes P and Q. I believe both P and Q, so I believe P and Q. David doesn't, because he rejected Q. Nigel doesn't, because he rejected P. So as a group, if we follow majority voting, we're stuck with saying we believe P, Q, but reject P and Q. That's a real problem. If we behaved like that, we couldn't operate as a group.

There are many many examples of this. Actually, I became alerted myself to that particular paradox through some legal literature - what is called the doctrinal paradox. I gave it the name, "the discursive delimma," arguing there was a wider problem than you have in the legal case. Let's focus on that paradox - the discursive delimma. Here's an example of it:

Suppose the three of us make up the board of some organization, maybe it's a housing association. Someone comes to us with a complaint against the landlord which is that the heater in his room blew up and caused him great psychological damage or harm. He's brought a complaint against the landlord to us, and the three of us have to decide on that complaint. Imagine now that we have decided in the way courts would decide an issue like this - which is to say the landlord will indeed be liable, he'd be blameworthy, if he had a duty of care in this matter - looking after the heater - and indeed the tenant was actually harmed - he really was traumatized by the blowing up of the heater. If both of those are the case, then we think the landlord is liable or culpable and maybe there's some punishment due to him as a result.

The three of us have to make up our mind on these matters. The first issue - was the tenant traumatized? David and I might agree, like P. And Nigel might think no - but as a group we think yes, he was indeed traumatized by the incident.

Second question: Did the landlord have a duty of care for the heaters and looking after them or was it somebody else maybe in this housing association we're imagining? And let's suppose David thinks no, the landlord didn't have a duty of care, but Nigel thinks he did and I think he did. So again, Q - the landlord had a duty of care - we agree to that as a group.

But now it comes to the issue of do we agree that the landlord should be held culpable, blameworthy? But remember I'm the only one who thought P and Q - that the landlord had a duty of care and that this poor tenant was damaged. Each of you rejected one of those, so you're going to say no to that and I'm going to say yes. Now as a group we are being incoherent.

So as a group, we've got to avoid just forming the group view that answers by majoritarian methods to our individual views. If the three of us are going to behave as a group agent - that means we are going to mimic an individual which means as a group we are going to be capable of advancing purposes, sharing purposes, according to shared representation. We can now see in order to achieve that agency, we have to make sure that our representation of how things are and our purposes are actually consistent. What you've seen from this example is that you can't guarantee they'll be consistent if you just rely on majority voting within the group.

Christian List and I were happily able to establish a more general result which is that there is no simple way of starting with individuals and their views and then determining the group views by the majority vote or any other simple sort of aggregation of those individual views into a group view. You just can't do it.

It is tragic in this sense: it's called an impossibility result. It's impossible to ensure that the views of a group are coherent, that they are rational, that they stand together, that they are consistent - it's impossible to establish that kind of rationality, "collective rationality," let's call it - and at the same time establish another condition which you might call "individual responsiveness." In other words, have the group hold views that are responsible case by case to the views of the individuals.

If we're going to get our act together, say on the housing association example, what we have to do is decide NOT to go by majority views but on some issues to adopt a view as a group that the majority of us actually reject. That is called constructing, as it were, a group mind.

There's actually a very long tradition of recognizing that individual human beings can combine into units or groups which themselves can act like agents, having purposes, having representations, having means of changing these purposes and representations, and being pretty rational and coherent about doing all of that. Although interestingly by the standard history, the Romans and the Greeks for example didn't have that notion of a corporate entity. That suddenly happens in the Middle Ages to answer to realities like the guild or the town or the monastary or the monastic order or whatever. Groups which now have a real salience in this world. And as these groups become salient, the lawyers and the philosophers begin to talk precisely of the artificial person, the persona ficta, some understand it as a pretend person but many as an artificial person. Already in the 1300s there's a strong particularly legal group of people who are arguing that these corporate entities are persons in their own right and that they should be treated as persons, they've got standing in law like persons, they've got property, they have contracts, they can have a mind of their own.

Myself looking at those midieval thinkers, you sort of feel, gosh, they are thinking the same sort of things that I think. But then you move down to the 17th century for example and people like Thomas Hobbes, who begins to think about the State and the Commonwealth in precisely the same way, modeling it as he says "on the company of merchants." Hobbes does something that I think misleads other people for a long time - he suggests that what happens when you do get an incorporation of individuals is that they go by majority voting. That's endorsed also by Locke and by Rouseau when they equally talk about the Commonwealth as an incorporated agent.

They are wrong about that, but after Hobbes, there are two developments really. One development is in actual practice and the other development is in legal theory or philosophical theory.

The development in practice is in the 19th century - the rise of the commercial corporation. Remember that in the early 1700s, corporations were severely limited in English law as a result of the South Sea Bubble and the bad experience there. Things began to loosen up again only in the 1820s and from then on over the next 30 or 40 years, and the same thing happens in America. You get an amazing development in which commercial corporations become capable of more and more and more independence. So the corporation can be formed just by registering it, it can operate in any area within the domain of the legislation, it can change sphere of activity without going to parliament or back to the registry, and you get limited liability of course. And of course, corporations are allowed to own other corporations and to control other corporations, so you get the possibility of a whole biomass of corporate entities, which is what we've been experiencing over the last 200 years.

The conceptual development - very interesting things happen. One is that a preeminently german thinker Arthur Gilke? goes back to the medieval sources and develops a whole theory of corporate entities - churches and commercial corporations and political parties and states and so on - about how these corporate entities have got a life of their own, are "real persons" - a phrase used - and that becomes highly influential. Unfortunately as I think, that whole development, this new sort of interest, philosophical, theoretical interest in corporations, in corporate agents - that all gets held up because it becomes associated in the popular mind with fascism, because they talk the language of corporations, of corporate entities a lot and so in the fight against fascism, intellectual and otherwise, you get a cult of what comes to be called "individualism" which is taken mistakenly to commit us to thinking there are no such things as group agents. Frankly, I think we are only recovering in a way from that triumph mid-century of a line that said "there are no group agents, there are only individual agents." Of course there are group agents."