The Touro Communication Club Notes - #114 –April 28, 2010 Tourocommunicationclub.blogspot.com
Five Quotes on Freedom
“The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage.”
Thucydides, ancient Greek historian and author, 460-404 B.C.E.
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.”
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian philosopher know for his doctrine of nonviolent protest, 1869-1948
“Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.”
Voltaire, 18th century French philosopher
“While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.”
Stephen R. Covey, American author of “The Seven Habits of Effective People.”
“The last human freedom is the ability to choose our attitude toward a given situation.”
Viktor Frankl, Viennese psychiatrist, author of “Man’s Search for Meaning”
The Touro Communication Club
2 pm - Wednesday, April 28, 2010– Room 223
“Freedom”
We have grown up in America believing that freedom is precious. We believe we are not bound by the political limits of other countries. The American Dream says you can achieve anything you want. Should everything be “laissez-faire”? Does freedom equal license? 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 interesting exchange this week!
Logical Fallacy of the Week #5: “Tautology”
This is one of my favorites because so many people use tautologies without realizing they are meaningless. Strictly, speaking a tautology is circular reasoning. A tautology occurs when a thought or reason or definition is used to define or explain itself without any further explanation.
Tautologies are favorites of politicians and demagogues who create the impression of knowing something by “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
Dictionaries are famous for using tautologies. You look up a word only to discover the same word is used to explain the word you are looking up. Students often don’t pick up on this false knowledge.
In clarifying how a tautology works, let’s use the structure of a syllogism. The structure of any tautology argument is A=B, therefore A=B. When the structure of a statement is outlined, the fraudulence of the position is exposed immediately.
Some examples include:
· Right is right; wrong is wrong.
· God is God.
· Truth is truth.
· “I trust him because he’s trustworthy.”
· “I love him because...I…love him.”
Strategy: Since we are not trained to listen, tautologies float by all the time, especially when we don’t have any evidence to support our position. Without ear training, we may think something is wrong, but the situation goes by so quickly that we aren’t prepared to catch.
A Note to Communicators:
Freedom in all its glory
Many years ago, cartoonist Jules Feiffer portrayed a scraggily young hippie declaring that he was free. Then he discovered that he was trapped in a jail. He broke out of his jail only to discover he was in another jail. Finally, he decided that his only freedom was to choose the jail he wanted to live in.
I have always wondered about people in jail and how free they were. Ordinarily, we don’t think of people is jail as free because they did not choose the jail. However, if you go to any bodega or mom-and-pop store or students in a classroom, you’ll observe the same physical behavior as the person in jail, yet they believe they are free. Perhaps Feiffer’s observation is accurate.
America is populated with people who came here with a dream to be free. Several years ago, a group of immigrants in Brooklyn didn’t like what they discovered about America’s freedom, so they returned to their original country because American freedom was too hard.
Politicians and demagogues love abstract words like “freedom.” People automatically cheer when the word is mentioned. As all clever politicians will do, they effectively employ these glittering generalities to great success. And no one challenges them.
My wife tells the story of a 4th grader she had in a class in Long Beach, NY who asked her why if there was a Statue of Liberty in the New York harbor, why wasn’t there a Statue of Responsibility in San Francisco harbor? Caught by the incisiveness of the question, she responded that America was still learning the responsibilities of freedom.
Freedom does not mean entitlement. Freedom does not mean license. Freedom does not mean you can do anything without consequence.
Freedom recognizes that you aren’t the only person in the world. Freedom recognizes that in order to function in society you need to relate and communicate with others. Narcissism doesn’t work very well in a free society, although a lot of narcissists in this world.
As the 70’s children’s music album said, “We are free to be you and me.” The freedom we aspire to is to live in a society that is free of politically imposed limits. However, in just saying that, we have to quickly realize that one person’s freedom is another person’s manacles.
So how do we get out of these inevitable arguments? We have to realize that we are going to have many, many arguments because people are different. (Duh!) Accepting those differences is a major emotional task. Where political laws may officially support freedom, the freedom in everyone’s heart is always up for challenge.
Therefore, we must be prepared to negotiate with someone with whom we disagree. This is very difficult to do when we are emotionally attached to our position. We can talk about resolving our differences amicably, but how many of us have the emotional intelligence to detach our intellect from our heart-felt positions?
Very few.
So freedom is a word that is a walking booby trap. Freedom for whom? Does freedom imply that someone will lose when someone wins? I hope not. Wars and sports set up false models of only two options when many more exist.
What’s the lesson? The old predictable cliché – communicate better. Yup. Sure. We talk about better communication, but, like Mark Twain’s weather, who does anything about it?
I would add another step beyond the blandishment of better communication. We need to learn how to negotiate, to resolve conflicts, especially when we are in the middle of an argument.
Oh, well, back to Jules Feiffer’s jail. I can be certain of the limits of my self-imposed jail. Besides, I’m tired of arguing.
UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:
May 5, 2010 – “The Seven Heavenly Virtues” Last October, we had a spirited discussion about “The Seven Deadly Sins.” This week we turn to the Seven Heavenly Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Fortitude, Justice, Temperance, Prudence Originating with the Greeks and codified by the Roman Catholic Church in the Dark Ages, these seven virtues are designed to teach positive lessons about behavior in an unruly world. We’ll explore as many as time allows.”
May 12. 2010 -“Distractions” We are bombarded with some 2 billion stimuli each day. Until recently, people seem to be able to juggle the external “noise” and the internal “noise.” But recently many of us are on stimulus overload. We cannot concentrate. We cannot focus. Our minds wander. We are glued to our BlackBerrys wherever we are. We seem to be reduced to Pavlovian dogs responding to stimuli that we cannot or choose not to control. We seem to have become a nation of ADD people. Lots of opinions here. Perhaps even a case or two of denial?
May 19, 2010 – School is closed.
May 28, 2010 – “Negotiation” Using material from his Intercultural Communication course, Professor George Backinoff will creating a role play or two to demonstrate the negotiation strategies required in an intercultural transaction. Ultimately, all communication is intercultural to some degree because we carry our cultures with us all the time.
What about one of these topics?
“Rodney King: ‘Why Can’t We Get Along?”
“Repetition”
“Meaning”
“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”
“Heroism”
“Concentration”
“Coping with Adversity”
Student Poetry showcase
“Empathy”
“Imagination”
“Connecting the Dots”
Role play of cynical people
“Cold Calling in Sales”
“He’s Just Not That into You”
“Money”
“Criticizing – Giving and Receiving”
And dozens of others!
Compare the notice of the session with what really happened!
What happened on Wednesday, April 14, 2010?
The “I Have a Dream” Speech of Martin Luther King Jr.
We are introducing the Critical Listening Institute with this Club session. We listen but we don’t consciously practice our listening skills. For this first session, we will listen to the famous speech to discover how MLK constructs his message, the images he uses and how he uses repetition to make his point. We’ll also observe how his vocal cadences enhance his message. (We’ll do Ravel’s “Bolero” next)
With the addition of over 20 new faces from two classes plus 10 familiar faces, we had a very full house listening to one of America’s most famous speeches. We have to thank Professor Jose Dunker and his Civil Rights class from Midtown and Professor Gena Bardwell’s Public Speaking class from the Dov Revell campus for their contributions.
By name, the newcomers includes Golda Siovnov, Milana Khafizova, Aresen Niyaza, Vadit Rochmanov, Min Lee Beller, Revver Rubenstein, Maribel Diaz, Dan Davidson, Noemi Eljassi, Yusa DeLeon, Ester Abayev, Bidhya Jayswal, Shosheena Brown, Talisa Wright, Gamdu Kuwitch, Reetha Groce, Whitney Taylor, George Goodwine, Sheila Jackson and John Scott. (Forgive the misspellings.) Among the familiar faces were Jean Missial, Jose Dunker, Gena Bardwell, Drani Gabu, Richard Green, Ronald Johnson, Gary Sheinfeld, Charles Mason, Lorinda Moore and Hal Wicke. Richard Green provided the CD of King’s speech and the technical expertise of playing it. (Thank you, Richard.)
Hal gave a little background on the Communication Club for the first timers. We are about to begin our 4th year with this session being #114. With Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, the club launches a new feature, The Critical Listening Institute, where we will listen and observe closely a variety of speeches, music, dance, theatre and visual arts.
Before the group listened to the speech, Hal noted that the “I have a dream” speech is considered by many to be one of the most important in human history. Certain speeches have become turning points in history, a landmark in which the speech influenced the direction of the country. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” is another.
He pointed out the two major divisions in the speech. The tone of first part was a low key anger as King characterized the history of the Negro people in America. He laid the groundwork for the second part of the speech with inspirational words – “I have a dream” (9 times) and “Let freedom ring” – (8 times). He describes the promise of the future.
The speech belongs to the category of “Exhortation” in which the speaker urges the audience to action, to do something.
Then we listened to the speech without interruption. Although videos of the speech are available, we chose to focus on the listening, rather than be distracted by the dominant visual sense when we watch a video.
In the discussion that followed, many aspects of the speech were clearly apparent:
· King has an effective way with words.
· There is a controlled rage with instructions: “Don’t loot,” “Don’t get loud.”
· He used historical references indirectly, challenging the listener to identify the speaker (Lincoln.)
· Many Biblical references.
· King focused on the promise of America to come, but he asks rhetorically, “When is that Emancipation Act going to become true.”
· Many money references – “cash our check, “insufficient funds,” “promissory note,” etc.
· Money is concrete; a contract was broken.
· What does money mean? Freedom, have and have nots, you can measure money, value as a human being.
Professor Dunker pointed out in the first part that the speech emphasized that the promise of freedom was overdue. “I want it now.” “It has been owed to us for over 100 years.”
· The Dream says the promise will have because I have faith.
· “The color of the skin is no longer important, but the content of your character is” – makes me relate to King.
· The promissory note still has not been delivered – we are still not free in 2010.
We turned briefly to some of the rhetorical devices that King used to sharpen the impact of his speech.
· “Anaphora - The repeated use of selected phrases for emphasis. E.g., “I have a dream,” “Let freedom ring.”
· Historical references.
· Biblical references
· Metaphors
The Civil Rights class had to leave at 3:30 so the group broke up. But the discussion continued into the halls.
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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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