The Touro Communication Club Notes #92 –October14, 2009
Two Communication Quotes of the Week
I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) was thirty-fourth president (1953-1960). Previously, “Ike” was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II
The real persuaders are our appetites, our fears and above all our vanity. The skillful propagandist stirs and coaches these internal persuaders
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983), often called the longshoreman philosopher, wrote “The True Believer” in 1951. He was awarded the American Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan shortly before his death.
The Touro Communication Club
2 pm - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 – Room 223
“The Seven Deadly Sins”-
Originating with the Greeks and codified by the Catholic Church in the Dark Ages, these seven human behaviors are thought to be central to our difficulties in the world. Unfortunately, today we often take these behaviors as the norm. We’ll explore as many as time allows. The seven include: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride.
Another view:
Communication instructor Diana Thompson responded to colleague Gena Bardwell’s recent Communication Quote with a parallel statement taught her by Diana’s mother:
"He who knows, and who knows he knows, should teach.“He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool. Shun him."Thanks, Diana – and Gena.A Note to Communicators:
Persuasion – the invisible tool to change people’s minds (Part I)
Strategy: Having decided you want something, develop the most effective way to get it, short of stealing, killing or doing something dishonest or ethical.
Tactic: To experiment with various ways of persuasion until we discover one that works both in the short and long term without damaging the object of persuasion.
Whether we are aware of it or not, we use persuasion almost all the time. Our first target is ourselves. Must we get out of bed? Must we go to work/school? Must we pay attention to our loved ones? Which is more important: our professional goals or our family?
We move from persuading ourselves to persuading others. You should take this action. You should buy this product. You should believe this way. You should vote for this candidate. You should get out of this war.
When we attempt to persuade, we need to be aware of our audience. When we try to persuade ourselves, our audience is our self. We have to persuade our self. But our self is often most elusive.
· Do we know who we are?
· What we stand for?
The battle inside our minds is constant in the choices we make.
In persuading our self, we are always having the fight between our emotions and our reason.
· I am hungry, therefore I want to eat. But I can’t eat because I am too fat.
· I’m tired; therefore I want to go to sleep. But I can’t because I have work to do.
· I want that grade/promotion, but I don’t want to do any extra work to get it.
Who wins? Usually our emotions. Certainly, emotions will always trump reason in a crisis.
Unless you are like the firefighter in 1949 in Mann Gulch, Montana, when trapped by an oncoming forest fire, set fire to the grass around him and burned a protective circle around him and was only singed by the flames. Other firefighters ran and were charred to death. (Cited by Joshua Lerner, “How We Decide,” (2009), pp. 93-97)
Here, reason trumped emotion in a counter-intuitive situation. Psychologists, according to Lerner, call this process “metacognition.” But how many people do this? Or can do this? Perhaps another way of looking at emotions being trumped by reason is “thinking outside the box.”
The persuader is fully aware that most people don’t think outside the box. They are products of their emotions. As Eric Hoffer notes in “The True Believer,” a “herd” mentality, a mob psychology, takes over and governs behavior. [Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 play, “Rhinoceros’ physicalizes this phenomenon by turning people into rhinoceroses when they became infected with the virus of conformity.]
STOP! I’ve got too many ideas going on at once. I’m sure this is all comprehensible to the reader. Let me stop and narrow the topic by going back to “simple” persuasion [ha!] and try to make this complicated topic more accessible. [My elliptical brain constantly fights with the need for a writer to be disciplined, reasoned and sequential.]
Let’s segue from persuading the individual self to the very complicated area of trying to persuade others. The possibilities are numerous when we look at the structural aspects of persuading others.
· Persuading family members (horizontal back and forth,, vertical up and down),
· Persuading co-workers (horizontal tactics),
· Persuading employees (vertical down tactics),
· Persuading the boss (vertical up tactics),
· Persuading voters (a mixture of horizontal and vertical tactics)
· Persuading Congress (also a mixture of tactics)
· Persuading the leaders of other countries (also a mixture of tactics)
There are many other paradigms of persuasion, each requiring different approaches, but for this short essay, these seven must suffice.
The fundamental premise of all persuasion is that you must know your audience. All speech makers are taught to analyze the people to whom their message is directed. Age, sex, culture, orientation to the topic, etc. The message is tailored to these variables.
By contrast, it is the rare teacher who does a demographic analysis of his/her students. Audience adaptation is critically important to successful persuasion.
On the other hand, the teacher typically has one message and one way of delivering that message. One size fits all. The students must adapt to the teacher. Yet all human beings have different ways of learning – some are visual learners, some are auditory learners, some are kinetic learners.
Dating from the 4th century BCE, Aristotle’s “Rhetoric” remains the original casebook on persuasion. ‘The Rhetoric consists of three books. Book I offers a general overview, presenting the purposes of rhetoric and a working definition; it also offers a detailed discussion of the major contexts and types of rhetoric. Book II discusses in detail the three means of persuasion that an orator must rely on: those grounded in credibility (ethos), in the emotions and psychology of the audience (pathos), and in patterns of reasoning (logos). Book III introduces the elements of style (word choice, metaphor, and sentence structure) and arrangement (organization). Some attention is paid to delivery, but generally the reader is referred to the Poetics.”(Edward P.J. Corbett, “The Rhetoric and Poetics of Aristotle,” Modern Library edition, 1984, introduction.)
Before I get too academic and reveal all my sources, let me end this edition of an incredibly fascinating topic which has so many aspects that influence us every hour of every day.
UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:
October 21 – “SPAR Debate” –“SPAR” stands for “spontaneous argument.” Argument” here means “a reasoned statement,” not a disagreement. We often face situations where we have to make clear statements without much preparation. This communication skill is called, “Thinking on your feet.” We take statements like “Greed is Good” and “Honesty is the best policy” and argue the pros and cons of each in a very limited time.
October 28 - “Entitlement” Do you believe in “entitlement”? You believe that you are deserving of or entitled to certain privileges. Are you entitled to “respect”? Are you entitled to an A grade in every course? Are you entitled to say, “I am King”? (Sean John’s new men’s fragrance). Does fame make you entitled? Because you are male or female, does that make you entitled? What are the criteria for being “entitled”? Another complex topic that shows up in the words we choose and the behavior we use.
November 4 – “Martial Arts and Communication – a Demonstration” Club member Ronald Johnson is a brown belt instructor in martial arts. After one of our meetings, we talked and he made some clear points about the connection between the principles of martial arts and communication. He and his students will demonstrate a few moves that capture how the two unlikely areas do connect.
What about one of these topics?
“How Do You Fire Someone?”
“Thinking”
“Rap and Hip Hop – What’s the Message?"
“Rodney King: ‘Why Can’t We Get Along?”
“Asking Questions in Class”
“Cold Calling in Sales”
“Meaning”
“The Seven Heavenly Virtues”
“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”
“Charles Borkhuis and his Radio Plays”
And dozens of others!
What happened on Wednesday, October 7, 2009? “Civility”
This week’s discussion attracted several new members who made significant contributions. The newcomers included Damian Forbes, Jean Mission, Christopher Couch, and Rene Vasquez. The old-timers included Richard Green, Erica Bell, Lorinda Moore, Pamela Sheppard, Charles Mason, Ronald Johnson, Markus Vayndorf, Drani Gabu, Gary Sheinfeld and Hal Wicke.
When you think of “Civility,” what comes to mind?
· What my mom taught me.
· Respect.
· Manners.
· You scratch my back. I scratch yours.
· Men opening the door for women.
· Saying “Please” and “Thank you.”
There were many examples of “Incivility:”
Obama’s speech and Congressman Joe Wilson’s shouting, “You lie!”
The shoes being thrown at President Bush in Iraq.
Serena Williams getting upset over the referee’s call that lost her the championship.
A student shouting in class, “I’m right and you are wrong.”
Why does “incivility” occur?
· It’s not just disagreeing; it’s your delivery of your disagreement.
· Controversial topics always produce incivility. “Religion, politics, sex and money should be banned from conversation.”
The group discussed a recent event in which one person took offense at how she was treated. A friend came to her aid. The appearance of box cutters raised the level of disagreement to danger. Officials took over.
· The people who are “uncivil” lack maturity. They are inexperienced, young kinds. Name-calling and sexist statements occurred. There was no attempt at a solution. They behaved with knee-jerk responses.
· “I have to choose my battles.”
· “I am comfortable with who I am. Others are not and get into trouble.
· “There’s going to be a Faculty Development workshop on “Civility”(Wednesday, November 11).”
· “It’s about critical thinking.”
· “There are two sides to civility. You have it. Others don’t”
· All kinds of behavior occur on the train – People race for seats, regardless of age, gender, infirmity, culture. Even people with canes often don’t get acknowledged.
· “You need empathy for those who race for seats on the train. They’ve had to fight for everything their entire lives.”
· Women are not respected. They are looked at as objects.
· The Women’s movement failed.” They haven’t learned to speak with respect and behave uncivilly to gain attention.
· They manipulate to get their goal.
· When people manipulate, they lose civility.
Gary spoke about the symbolic nature of men opening a door for women. Gesture and language carry much symbolism. Word usage has changed to increase awareness.
· First it was wife beating and no one paid attention
· Then it was spouse abuse and still no one paid attention
· But when the term “battered women’ entered the conversation, people paid attention
Joe Louis, the champion boxer of the 40s and 50s, was considered by whites as a “credit to his race.” For African-Americans, this term remains an insult.
Lorinda disagreed with the tone of the women’s movement. “I am a lady’s lady. I am not beholden to you for anything, yet I choose to behave in a traditional feminine manner.”
The entire discussion moved toward gender conflicts and how language portrayed one person’s view of another. “Slut,” “whore,” “stud” “bust down” are words which define attitudes toward sexual performance.
Gary shared a personal anecdote about his interchange with an English woman. There was a momentary misunderstanding about the word, “love.”
Why depend on a man or a woman? Women want security – “He’s got my back.”
A collection of random ideas that popped up.
“Civility” has its limits.
What is the level of “incivility” that we are willing to accept?
Markus reminded us that civility is social AND individual.
Civility = reciprocity. The Golden Rule at work.
Was the Civil Rights movement “uncivil”? Did it have to be to accomplish its goal?
Columbus was entirely “uncivil” with the indigenous population he met.
American imperialism is uncivil.
Inferior vs. superior – among immigrants. Those with an American passport are superior.
First generation immigrants are empowered when they become American citizens.
Do illegal immigrants have the right to be treated civilly? Is deportation “uncivil”?
As the session wound up, many conflicting ideas were thrown about. Many terms were used without definition. The verbal chaos seemed to go unnoticed as the norm in most conversations.
We stopped the discussion at 4:30 pm – a full 2 ½ hours after we began. Great energy for a very long time even though we got way off track and onto gender and other issues.
I wonder if I were more of a stick in the mud insisting on much more disciplined exchanges whether the electric air would go out of these spirited exchanges. If I don’t, the discussions should take place in a bar where every body is getting progressively drunker. If we were a dorm late at night, these would be called “bull sessions.” “Bar room philosophy” is notoriously loose, unfocused and, certainly undisciplined. .I’ll see what happens.
We always have a great time exploring these issues. So often our daily life never focuses on these Communication issues. If you have something you want us to discuss please let us know and we’ll add it to the list.
Next time bring a friend. The Communication Club is always an open discussion, limited only by time. Everyone gets a chance to speak. All opinions are welcome. Here is an opportunity for students to challenge professors’ views outside the class without any homework or assignments. You just have to show up and listen and talk if you want.
Hal Wicke
Hal Wicke
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