Archive | July, 2013

The Language of Democracy

9 Jul

This is a short blog on communication skills. Previously I had written a blog on how compromise is fundamental to the workings of a democracy and that blog was ‘inspired’ by a discussion I had with some Italians who were students in my English lesson. Recently, I had another discussion with students which prompted my writing this blog.

To explain: in my teaching English as a Second Language I make the point that to have good communication skills one must know not only correct grammar, vocabulary, intonation, pronunciation, etc., but also know how a culture uses the language. In short, what is seen by a specific culture as good communication skills? Now, this is a very interesting topic in itself (I taught a university course on ‘Cross-Cultural Communication’) but in my less intensive ESL classes, I bring to students an awareness of the model of assertive communication. While I clearly understand that assertiveness is not a model that all cultures have adhered to (e.g., Asian and Native American) in English speaking countries, esp. the business world (many of my students are learning English for business purposes) – but not only – assertiveness is seen and taught as a viable method of fostering clear communication, improving problem-solving and goal achievement, and reducing conflict between co-workers. Also, as a clinical psychologist, who did a lot of couples/marital therapy, I also used the assertiveness model to foster clearer and less problematic communication skills between my clients.

So, in one ESL lesson, we were talking about some basic principles of the assertiveness model:  Assertive communication is effective communication. It’s how to deal confidently and successfully with the people around you. Assertive people feel in control, they achieve win-win outcomes in any interpersonal transaction. They make their point persuasively whilst supporting the opinion of others. They build co-operation within a team and between teams. Assertive people communicate self-respect AND respect for others. When we are assertive we communicate what we want or prefer. We state our preference clearly and confidently without making ourselves or others look small, without being threatening or putting others down. This results in open, more genuine relationships. The four types of communication are aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive and assertive.

As we talked, one of my students said, “This is the language of Democracy.” Surprised by this spontaneous comment, I paused and with quick reflection, I said, “Yes, you are right” but we didn’t have time to take the comment up for a discussion. The next day, upon reflecting on this comment, I had to agree again with it. As I wrote in another blog, ‘What Are the Necessary Conditions of Democracy’, democracy requires ‘a political culture of negotiation, compromise, accommodation, and a willingness to lose. It is widely recognized as essential to democratic stability. Especially important here is the argument that democracy institutionalizes a means of nonviolent conflict resolution- – -the willingness to negotiate, compromise, and debate, rather than fight.’ R.J.Rummel

So, it is evident that effective and clear communication is also a necessary condition for a well-functioning Democracy. So my student was correct, the description of assertive communication above certainly fits the bill. Often political discussions in Italy, as well as other democratic countries, can degenerate into name-calling with no reasonable debate on the issues. When they do, the discussions no longer follow the guidelines of assertive communication; both, in the intent or desire for a political culture of negotiation, compromise, accommodation, a willingness to lose and also, the use or knowledge of the specific assertive communication skills. The desire and knowledge of good communication go together for successful communication necessary for a democracy. Without the desire for a ‘win-win’ situation as well as a functional knowledge of good communication skills, the functioning of dialogue about concerns, negotiation, and debates will rapidly break down into poor communication and confusion and deadlock. Therefore, I suggest a public interest group, in all democratic countries, form to do a continuing evaluation of how well politicians communicate in an effective assertive manner.

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The Veil of Unknowing: The Inscrutability of Existence

9 Jul

 

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” Albert Einstein

This short essay takes serious the advice of Albert Einstein and will satisfactorily clarify the title in a couple of paragraphs. One of the topics that I discussed in my books, The Teachings of the Buddha: Seeing Without Illusion and The Buddha’s Radical Psychology: An Exploration is that we and all living beings are confronted with the fact that because of our evolutionary biological constitution we are like the men of the well-known ‘Blind Men and Elephant’ parable. The story goes that a long time ago a raja gather together all the men of a town who were congenitally blind. He presented to each man different parts of the elephant: to one the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant. Then he asked each to describe the elephant. The men who were presented with the head answered, ‘Sire, an elephant is like a pot.’ And the men who had inspected the ear replied, ‘An elephant is like a winnowing basket.’ Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a plowshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a granary; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, etc. Then they began to quarrel, shouting, ‘Yes it is!’ ‘No, it is not!’ ‘An elephant is not that!’ ‘Yes, it’s like that!’ and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

Now this parable has two lessons: one is that of the nature of dogmatic points of view and more for this essay the nature of knowledge. For if the elephant represents existence in the sense of the external environment, human beings are like the blind men of the story when it comes to comprehending the nature of existence. We can’t understand yet we keep thinking we can. Also for some this has the consequence of dogmatic thinking.

The reason we can’t know the veiled nature of existence is really quite obvious and depends on only two factors. The first and primary factor is that we are physical beings and as physical beings, we interact and input the sense data from the external environment through a highly selective physical apparatus – our body. We, and by the nature of it, all physical beings, have by necessity certain senses which have adapted over our evolutionary history to be sensitive to only a very restricted range of available sense data. It is through this highly limited input of the overall possible data that we then construct with our cognitive apparatus our ‘world’ or our personal idiosyncratic significance and meaning of the external world. In fact, this construction is an illusion of the veiled reality of existence and is dependent on our particular species nervous system and brain structure.

Therefore, we see that existence which is our ‘grounding’ is inscrutable and unknowable. Just to give a few examples of our very limited range of the known frequencies in the universe – we might not be aware of many other existent manifestations – what we call visible light is just one ten-billionth of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. So, we’re only seeing a very tiny sliver of that, because we have biological receptors that are tuned into that little part of the spectrum. Radio signals, mobile phone signals, television signals, and many other signals are going right through our body without our awareness because we do not have biological receptors for that part of the spectrum. Also, while the human ear is capable of hearing many sounds produced in nature, certainly not all. The normal range of hearing for a healthy young person is 20 to 20,000 Hz so a heartbeat of 1 or 2 Hz cannot be heard and neither can we detect frequencies as high as 100,000 Hz as most bats can.

Then after receiving the various available sense inputs, our brain processes these inputs and then constructs an interpretation of that information so we can make sense out of the raw data we receive. This construction becomes our ‘world’ or our sphere or scene of our inner life. While in an evolutionary way this process has been successful to allow survival and adaption; in the larger sense living creatures are embedded and encapsulated in their own worlds unable to fully comprehend the larger universe because it is impossible to input all that information and then create a model about it. In fact, even the type or form of thoughts we can think are constrained by our biology and even more surprising Space and Time is also manufactured by our brain. So we live in a veiled universe and us mere mortals will never totally be able to see beyond the veil.

Familiarity with nature never breeds contempt. The more one learns, the more one expects surprises, and the more one becomes aware of the inscrutable. Archibald Rutledge

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