Transformational Communication

Howdy all …

Using a thread that began with a posting about the Swine Flu vaccination on a colleague’s Facebook page I’ve been analyzing how the interactions have progressed from that posting into a minor flame war. However what’s most interesting to me is the underlying structure.

I been looking at the structure and impact of language in communication in this thread in Parts 1 and 2 of this series, but more importantly IMO I’ve been writing about the effect of language on thinking and the behaviors it creates. In this entry I’m going further, below the surface, into the deep structure of language and it’s usage where the logic resides.

[NOTE: If you haven’t yet read Rethinking the Value of Language (Part 1) and Rethinking the Value of Language – Part II it would make sense to do that first – before you read this and try to make deep sense of this entry.]

The Origins and Implications of the the Meta-Model:

About thirty-five years ago Richard Bandler and John Grinder the co-developers of what later became the NLP model discovered a series of patterns in language that prevent the user from either communicating or thinking with precision. They grouped these patterns into three meta-catagories of what they referred to as meta-model patterns, Generalizations, Deletions and Distortions.

I’d add that this model of thinking about language usage is essentially about the logic of language, and how we violate that logic. When we violate the logic of language the meaning of what’s been/being communicated is unwound, creating ill-formed representations by we we communicate and/or fail to communicate.

• When we violate this logic in language usage in a grammatically correct way it may seem to make perfect sense, although in reality much or all of the sense contained in the language is lost
• Without being able to control our language usage to control our own thinking and communication we give up our personal power … losing much or all of our ability to choose for ourselves
• When we fail to manage our language use well in our communication with others we pay a great price … we lose our power to influence and persuade others in any meaningful way as well.

Essentially in each of these cases what’s happened is that what’s communicated or thought loses the ability to accurately represent what’s intended with any accuracy of precision whatsoever. When you violate the logical patterns of language usage in regard to the patterns of your own thinking you create ill-formedness in your representations of the world-at-large.

Simply put … when you violate the logic of language usage you lose touch with reality, a basic condition of what might be called insanity.

FWIW a significant part of my intention is to offer you access to the skills of critical thinking and the ability to communication with precision. When you can think and communicate with precision you have the means available to you regain and maintain some real semblance of sanity in a sometimes insane world. IMO this all begins with skill of critical observation … so let’s begin again …

Re-Visiting The Text:

Jim ended his last message with two quotes:

“All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.” ~ Douglas Adams

“The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.” ~ Hubert Humphrey

My response to Jim following his exchanges that preceded these quotes was:

”I don’t know you, but keep pointing to facts and non-facts as though this discussion here is based on some facts and some non-facts. Yet what continues to be missing is the evidence.”

I happen to be one who does believe in the primacy of evidence. This may of may not be the same as what you refer to as “science” above.”

What I’m doing here is trying to find out how Jim will respond to the possibility of allowing the discussion to be reframed.

I use his own argument form to respond to him. Specifically his call to ”logic and argument” vis-a-vis the Douglas Adams quote.

I begin by offering him some reason to consider accepting the reframe by pointing to Karl Popper’s philosophy of Logical Positivism – the dominant paradigm of scientific theory in the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century.

The most essential comment I make in regard to Popper’s philosophy is, “Simply stated, “we cannot prove what is true only that which is untrue.” A very logical statement that forms the foundation of Popper’s approach to science, which itself is an attempt to ground the scientific approach in logic.

Taking Jim “SERIOUSLY”

Then I build further on this by taking HIM seriously, especially in regard to the second quote he uses by Hubert Humphrey. I continue building towards a logical structure, offering him this well known premise, ”correlation does not equal causation”, another logical form at the core of the scientific method.

At this point there is some reason for him to choose to take what I’ve written seriously … if he choses to operate with an internally consistent logic himself. This is an essential basis of sane thinking and is easily revealed in language usage. Dialogic logic (the logic of communication exchanges) is either consistent or it’s not, i.e.: each comment connects to the one before and leads to the one after … with some reasonable gaps and movement allowed for to accommodate the nature human interaction.

Narcissistic Thinking

Yet there is a counter-arguement to believing that he’ll accept the offer I’m presenting to him. His previous entries all send the same message … I’m smarter than you, more educated than you, one of the intelligensia … an expert. As I said in my last posting, what Jim’s responses suggest are, “there are those of us who know and those of you who don’t … so stay out of it.”

This attitude is at the heart of what could be called narcissistic thinking. One of the characteristics of this kind of thinking pattern is the unwillingness to lose, to give any ground at all and especially to give away any of what is perceived of as power in interpersonal interactions.

Up until this point the only response I can reasonably expect is, ”So what?”

So I continue … I test whether or not he’s willing to give some ground, any ground at all …

”While I don’t depend on homeopathy to save me in times of crisis, I wouldn’t remove it from the medical lexicon of those who are supported by it, if only to raise their morale – there is as you know strong evidence for the power and effect of placebos after all.”

While I don’t expect him to accept this statement, without it I can’t know if he’ll give any ground. Then I push it a little further …

”In the meantime the best defense that history offers against plague is not being there, then after that a strong immune system either by fortune or genetics … or both. So what I’ll choose is the massive evidence from the medical community regarding what does impact the ability to support and sustain a strong immune system based on the longitudinal studies we have, and do my best to remain free of exposure to the greatest extent possible in the meantime.”

The point above should challenge what Jim put out as his fundamental position so far, i.e.: ”I am a medical doctor, one of the experts who know … and you should be paying attention to what we have to say and follow our advice, if you don’t it’s because you’re stupid (remember you can’t possibly know anything without being an expert too) … and you will die because of it (”You’ll get no herd immunity …”).”

It also gives Jim something to say “NO” to without having to dismiss my entire response … maybe even an opening to say “YES” to the previous part of the posting.

Testing the Theory and Dangling the Bait

Then I dangle the real bait …

”FWIW no vaccines for me … the jury is also most definitely out on that one, unless you count the definitive proof by Popper’s standards that they in fact are neither universally safe for all nor universally effective. Either way I accept your personal choice here and wish you the best with it.”

In many ways this is the real bait specifically because I take back my own power here, accepting his right to do as he will and claiming my own at the same time. We should see very quickly if Jim takes the bait and proves out my budding theory about him being a victim of narcissistic thinking … a particularly virulent form of ill-formedness in human interaction IMO.

Jim’s Response …

FWIW there should be no surprise that Jim takes the bait … hook, line and sinker as they say.

Once again you’ll have to wait for the rest of my analysis of the communication patterns in this thread and the light they throw on language usage, thinking and behavior.

I’m trying to keep this to bite size chunks of information, and this already feels a bit long and dense … but not too long, so I’ll stop it here for now.

I’ll be posting Part 4 very soon … but in the meantime I’d love to hear from you with your own analysis, comments and observations.

Best regards,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Flt. CO29, somewhere over the North Atlantic

Hey Folks …

I am very, truly disturbed. Thinking about thinking led me recently to thinking about language … and what I realized is not only don’t very few people think about language … most people can’t … and subsequently most people can’t and don’t think well at all.

This is extremely disturbing to someone committed to building futures that work … but let me layout my reasons as we go.

I’ve been “black” here on BlogNostra as they say in the world of advertising for quite some time, i.e.: silent and out of sight. I could list a whole ‘lotta’ reasons … but simply my activity has been elsewhere in terms of communicating with all’ya’all.

Without going into deep detail most of you probably know that I’ve been posting videos, sending out emails, trying to define a social networking strategy, writing on the forums … whew! … it’s exhausting sometimes thinking about all the ways. So I’ve chosen as one measure to limit my communication here … and yet …

This is my main forum to develop my ideas with you publicly, a place to essay and post articles about what catches my attention … and hopefully yours. So what’s re-captured my attention is the Value of Language. I mean this in a formal way. In other words thinking about language use, impact and action as a formal topic of incredible significance.

BUT, WHY NOW … WHY THIS?

Because language is one of the primary ways … if not THE primary way … in which we construct our perceptions, considerations and actions that in turn create the futures we individually and collectively live into.

Anyone who has been following my work knows that my main

concern has been on “Creating Futures That Work” for sometime now. During this evolution from the work I began over twenty years ago my attention has shifted more and more to collective effort and the impact of influence in making things happen collectively.

Okay, so where am I going with all of this …?

You might be asking yourself, “What’s does this have to do with language?” … I’d say just about everything!

Language is the main way we represent reality … it’s the main way we decide about what to be doing, what actions to take and not take … it’s the main vehicle for creating our futures, individually and collectively. That’s no small thing.

Yet, so little attention is paid to the teaching, training and practice required to master this technology of reality. So little as to amount to none for most folks.

Okay let’s get right to it … THE KEY TO POWER AND HAVING INFLUENCE IS A MASTERY OF LANGUAGE.

We don’t teach our children that this is really important … consider the amount of time and money spent on teaching our children mathematics or reading, to the same amount spent developing a knowledge of language in action. Yes, I know most school curriculums teach vocabulary development, grammar, functional writing and in some

cases even a bit of creative writing.

In many school curriculums very young children are asked to write ‘book reports’ as part and parcel of their training as young readers. These are basically summaries of what the book is about, and sometimes a bit more about what an opinion of the book as well. However none of this is training in the critical use of language, or training of language in action.

Yet, we literally create our futures in language … and we do so with little to no formal training whatsoever in how to do that!

If we were trained in ‘critical reading’ … the ability to read with a concurrent awareness of antecedents, allegory, multiple sources, concurrent writing … we would read what we encounter very differently. Instead we are taught to think that what is written is written “in black and white” … a colloquialism that is taken to mean, “if it’s written in black and white it must be true” or at least sho

uld be taken as true until proven otherwise … virtually always be someone else other than the reader.

Of course since we get a huge portion of our training in language usage and thinking in general from reading without critical reading skills we get little formal training in ‘critical thinking’ skills.

In other words most people don’t have any real training in ‘Critical Thinking’ whatsoever.

This used to be served in classical education by training in the reading of philosophy. The role this kind of training served was really more the development of ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical thinking’ though the development of strong training in mental skills associated with the formal reading of philosophy, maybe especially training in logic and logical systems.

Yet what I find when I raise this in ordinary conversation is that many people seem to think that “philosophy is dead” … a very dangerous proposition IMO. We are living with the results of this dangerous thinking in everyday decisions made by people who perceive themselves to be extr

emely well educated and capable of critical thought and decision-making in many cases. These people include the politicians we elect, the doctors responsible for our healthcare, teachers we entrust with the education of our children … are often themselves untrained in critical thinking, and in many cases therefore unable to employ the level of critical thought to make the decisions we ask them to IMO.

Critical language usage includes more than just what I’m calling critical reading skills, but must by default include ‘critical listening’ skills. Try finding training in critical listening and you’ll find a dearth of opportunity, you are however likely to find a plethora of training in what’s called, ‘active listening’ instead.

Essentially active listening training typically involves paying attention to what others are actually saying. One of the major aspects is listening when others speak instead trying to speak yourself, ignoring them, paying attention to other data in the environment and/or creating your response to them as they speak to you. What’s amazing is that I get that most people require training in actually listening to hear what others are saying.

But, make no mistake … ‘Active Listening’ is NOT the same as what I mean by ‘Critical Listening’.

Most folks can no more ‘listen’ critically than they can read critically. Then we’re surprised and shocked when people can’t communicate. Worse,we’re at the effect of those who do communicate powerfully, even when what they’re communicating endangers our future … and ill-prepared to take back control ourselves. Because we can’t and don’t read or listen critically when information is presented powerfully we tend to accept it as factual. This is the great skillset of many politicians, polemic

ists and pundits … despite a dearth of actual relation to reality.

In essence what I talking about here is arming yourself to protect and secure your future.

I’m focusing on the linkage between Power and Influence … I’m shifting the entire focus of my Unconventional Advice program around these very skills. My intention is to take the entirety of my study, training, expertise and professional practice and focus on the development of power and influence with my clients … essentiall

y taking back the ability to create their own futures … both on their own and with others.

FWIW I think this is not only very cool … but critical …

[PART 2 NOTE: I’ll be developing on these ideas in the case study I’ll be presenting in Part 2. This case study is based on an exchange I recently engaged in with a medical doctor in another forum that got be thinking again about how untrained and unskilled so many so called ‘professionals’ really are in these critical skills, and yet how significant their communication is to the average person by virtue of the positions they hold.

I think you’ll find the critique of the exchange offers you some critical insights into the power of language … and it’s potential and potent effect … especially in the hands of someone who is essentially unskilled and yet holds sway over others. I’ve no doubt after this case study you’ll be prepared to take back control and avoid becoming a victim of this game yourself … COMING SOON (promise), STAY TUNED.]

Best regards,

Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Copenhagen, Denmark