The Touro Communication Club Notes - #111 –April 7, 2010 Tourocommunicationclub.blogspot.com

Five Quotes about Civility

Civility costs nothing.

Proverb

“Teaching civility is an obligation of the family.”
Stephen Carter, American author of “Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy”

So let us begin anew – remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.”

John F. Kennedy, the 35^th American President

“America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.”

Oscar Wilde, 19^th century Irish playwright and poet

“Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.”

Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s Founding Fathers

The Touro Communication Club

2 pm - Wednesday, April 7, 2010– Room 223

“Current Events”

It takes some effort to keep your head buried in the sand with what’s going on in the world.Just this past week - two landmark events -“Obamacare” passed and Russia and the U.S. agreed on a nuclear arms reductions. President Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan. We can focus on Albany, Washington, Chile, Iran’s nuclear progress, the continuing Arab-Israeli difficulties, the latest celebrity scandal, the Health Care aftermath, ,the jobs picture and people in the news such as the return of Tiger Woods. The current 24/7 news cycle drives the media to fill the air. It creates a frenzied, breathless indiscriminate pseudo importance to everything. For example, the National Enquirer may be one of the nominees for a Pulitzer Prize in reporting for its on-going story of the John Edwards domestic disaster. And he was the Democratic nominee for VP in 2004!

Logical Fallacy of the Week #2: “Straw Man”

In the current American climate of incivility, there are many logical fallacies that could be identified beyond last week’s fallacy of cheap name-calling. A colleague once told me that people who make ad hominum attacks on others lack an imaginative vocabulary.

“The ‘Straw Man’ fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position,” writes the Nizkor Project,(cf. nizkor.org). Imagine a fight in which one of the debaters suddenly introduces a totally different argument (the man of straw), attacks it, then proclaims victory. All the while, the real topic remains untouched.

The “Straw Man” strategy is used several ways:

· to change the subject of the conversation;

· to disarm the opponent shifting the ground;

· to introduce another argument that may parallel, but not relevant, to the original one but is weaker;

· to create another target (a “Straw Man”) that can be easily destroyed so the proponent can claim victory by knocking down a “Straw Man.”

The use of “Straw Man” fallacy is often present in family arguments, but has been prevalent from the beginning of the health care argument and beyond its signing into law last Tuesday. Both Republicans and Democrats – and now the Tea Party advocates – create “Straw Men” to bolster their positions with unsuspecting, uncritical audiences.

Your defensive strategy: Listen very closely to the other person. Notice when the person changes topics or makes a leap of logic. Bring the conversation back to the topic with which you both started.

A Note to Communicators:

Help! Critical Thinking Needed

Burger King has nothing on the rhetorical Whoppers flying across the political spectrum which have been generated on the health care issue. You might have thought the uproar was going to subside after President Obama signed the bill into law last Tuesday. WRONG! The tsunami has taken on a new life.

One of my favorite rhetorical equalizers is FactCheck.org, a service of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, which documents recently catalogued the whoppers promoted by both political parties, as:

• “The Floating Falsehoods”
• “Phantom Disturbances”
• “Duel Job Claims”
• “Inflated Cost Claims”
• “Innoculation Misinformation”
• “Government unHealthy Care”

How can the ordinary citizen even begin to grasp any semblance of an accurate understanding of an issue when so much wrong information, outright lies, half-truths, misstatements, misinterpretations and even invented information float in the air? The rhetorical noise is so great that one becomes sympathetic with those who want to keep their heads in the sand.

If there ever was a case for the importance of critical thinking and especially critical listening, the time is NOW.

The late NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “You are entitled to your opinion, but not to your facts.” The statement remains true, but in this national explosion of rhetorical bafflegab when people use opinions as fact, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

Both ends of the political spectrum stuck in their positions. The middle ground has disappeared. Why? Several thoughts come to mind:

· Some people believe anything they are told. The statement must be true if the speaker is an elected official, the person is on TV or has a blog. (cf. Stanley Milgrim’s study on “Obedience.”)

· Some people believe totally in their argument, but have selected a narrow part of the position that ignores other aspects of the position.

· Some people believe their way is the only way, a manifestation of the interpersonal clash over “My way or the highway.”

· Some people are “true believers” (Eric Hoffer’s term) who in an attempt to find themselves take on the persona of their leader.

· Some people respond to the glittering generalities, another logical fallacy.

· Some people don’t believe in their argument, but cynically use it for political advantage.

Except for the last dangerous option, these people’s the intellect has failed. Their critical ability is not fully developed or was never developed at all.. In this galaxy of visual, acoustical and verbal stimli that overwhelms us in New York City, we easily become deer in the headlights – frozen as we stare at the on-coming automobile.

Sensory overload kills the critical function. We don’t develop our critical abilities when we are drowning in sensory stimulation. We seek what we can understand viscerally, what feels, tastes, sounds good. We seek escape from the challenge of intellectual acuity. It’s hard work. Why not relax and immerse ourselves in sensory pleasures? That’s what the advertisers tell us.

When the critical function is dulled, the civil discourse becomes coarse. We can swear with impunity (as VP Joe Biden did the other day.) Profanity is the norm. We can shout epithets at people who say things with which we have been conditioned to disagree. We throw bricks, shoot guns into the offices of our presumed opponents. Shortly, in a worst cast scenario, we will strap on bombs and become suicide bombers.

Violence that leads to war is the prognosis of our behavior. In fact, according The New York Times Sunday “Week in Review” of March 28, 2010, reporter David E. Sanger writes about the war games simulations that the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution has been creating if Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities. Military training does this kind of war game simulation all the time, under classified conditions.

Certainly, I can be accused of arguing an end of the world view, but, for me, the current political climate certainly feels volatile enough to explode at any moment.

So what do we do? Our mission in the classroom remains the same – to identify and to dissect issues and to teach ways of analyzing them without prejudicing the conclusion.

We must continue to do this – faculty and students alike. Critical thinking isn’t a buzz word. Neither is critical listening. Critical thinking must be a 24/7 way of life.

UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:

April 14. 2010 “Jokefest” – In response to a member request to have more comedy, we will ask everyone to bring at least 3 jokes to try out on the audience. We’ll open with one joke after another. After several rounds, then we’ll stop our laughing and ask ourselves what have we heard, why did some jokes work and others did not, what have the jokes communicated, what kinds of jokes are offensive, etc. At least we should have a good time, yukking at ourselves.

April 21, 2010 - Introducing “The Critical Listening Institute”- We don’t practice our listening skills. For this first session, we will listen to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and discover how he constructs his message, the images he uses and how he uses repetition to make his point. (We’ll do Revel’s “Bolero” next)

April 28. 2010 - “Freedom”- We have grown up in America believing that freedom is precious. We believe we are not bound by the limits of other countries. The American Dream is to be able to achieve anything you want. Should everything be “laissez-faire”? Are there any limits on that freedom? Can we yell “Fire!” in a theatre? What kind of government should exist in a “free” society? We should have another enjoyable exchange this week!

What about one of these topics?

“Rodney King: ‘Why Can’t We Get Along?”

“Repetition”

“Meaning”

“The Seven Heavenly Virtues”

“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”

“Heroism”

“Concentration”

“Coping with Adversity”

“Distraction”

Student Poetry showcase

“Empathy”

“Connecting the Dots”

Role play of cynical people

“Cold Calling in Sales”

“He’s Just Not That into You”

“Money”

And dozens of others!

What happened on Wednesday,

March 17, 2010?

Compare the notice of the session with what really happened!

2 pm - Wednesday, March 24, 2010– Room 223

“Notes on Science and Art –The Complementary Divide”

A discussion led by Touro poet and teacher Charles Borkhuis. Although contemporary culture tends to view science as the sole purveyor of truth, ironically, the one reality that humans will ever know stands outside the domain of scientific investigation. Lived experience is not quantifiable; it needs a qualitative, descriptive mode to impart understanding. Science and art are addressing the same world, but their dissimilar methods have left us in a dualistic quandary. Are science and art irreconcilably divided, as many experts maintain, or are they parts of a complementary dialogue about the universe and our place in it?

This group were devoted to reflecting on a challenging topic. Newcomers included Vanessa Rodriguez and Margery Druss. Familiar faces included Brittany Robles, Carlisle Yearwood, Richard Green, Warren Kunz, Leon Perkal, Gary Sheinfeld, Markus Vayndorf, Lorinda Moore, Jean Missial, Drani Gabu, Ronald Johnson and Hal Wicke.

Hal Wicke introduced Professor Charles Borkhuis and read the blurb (above) to set the tone of the session. Professor Borkhuis said modestly that he had a few credits as a poet and playwright, speaking about his fascination between science and art. Then he read an essay he had written specially for this event.

He spoke about Dr. Kathleen Page, his significant other, who is a neuroscientist, molecular biologist and full professor at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. He contrasted his own career as a poet/playwright. “Somehow we got our roles as well as the sides of our brains reversed,” he said.

Among his points were;

· A personal context which provided the foundation their joint interest in the intersection of science and art.

· “Scientists, like everyone else, are susceptible to mysterious inexplicable experiences that sometimes border on the mystical.”

· C.P. Snow’s 1959 essay “argued that the two cultures – art and science – were at a serious impasse, suffering from ‘mutual incomprehension.’’

· A quotation from Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” “pits the aging humanist-historian George, against the young, confident biologist Nick over competing world views.”

· “The heart of the conflict is the problem of methodology…”

· Quotations from Einstein and mathematician Henri Poincaré – two scientists’ comments on the aesthetics of science.

· Neuroscience has replaced Freud, Jung Adler and Klein in most American psychology departments.

· “Perhaps the best way to approach the seemingly impenetrable divide between science and art is to introduce the problem of consciousness.”

· “Ultimately, scientist and poet are limited by the relative position of their observations…”

· Artists have been inspired by scientists: Whitman by Emerson; Proust by Bergson; Stein by William James, Salvador Dali by Freud and Einstein.

· Encouraging signs that science and art “may open new ways of reading each other’s work with humility, genuine interest and insight.”

Among the responses were:

· Incredible subject.

· Objectivity difficult to obtain

· Values not quantifiable.

Borkhuis – “There’s a connection between the production of art and the production of science.”

Yearwood – Contrast Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland.”

· Art feeds science.

Yearwood. - Everything starts from a picture.

Borkhuis – An internal dance of opposites.

Lorinda – Life imitates art, science imitates art.

Richard Green – Deepak Chopra – genius is nothing – quantum healing.

Sheinfeld – We are trapped in language.

Borkhuis – Proust – selection of element in “Time Remembered” [“A la recherché du temps perdu”]

· Disadvantages become advantages

Sheinfeld – Thomas Pynchon’s “Kreplak’s Joke”

· Love pieces but not the whole.

Markus introduces the topic of human consciousness – without language

Green – Rodin’s sculpture of a boy taking a thorn out of his foot.

Borkhuis – the memory of a loved one.

· Many names – Sophocles, Sir James Fraser’s “The Golden Bough”

Everyone made specific observations about what each learned during the session.

Hal closed the session with a general observation that Charles Borkhuis’ paper alone raised the bar of our discussion. We took on an exceedingly challenging topic and began to tear it apart into understandable elements. As with all our topics, this one barely scratched the surface and is worth revisiting in the future.

---

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