The Touro Communication Club Notes - #120 – June 16, 2010 Tourocommunicationclub.blogspot.com
Contents:
Contents:
1. Quotations about “Getting Along”
2. The Upcoming Club program: “Rodney King: Why Can’t We Get Along” Will Be On Wednesday, June 16, 2010 @ 2 pm in Room 223
3. Logical Fallacy of the Week # 10 – “Moving the Goal Posts”
4. A Note to Communicators: “”Why Can’t We Get Along?””
5. Upcoming Conversations
6. Possible club topics – please add to the list
7. What happened last week: “Imagination”
Five Quotes about Getting Along
If we lose love and self respect for each other, this is how we finally die.”
Maya Angelou, contemporary American author
“The true triumph of reason is that it enables us to get along with those who do not possess it.”
Voltaire, 18th century French philosopher
“If we have our own why of life, we shall get along with almost any how.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, 19th century German philosopher
If you just learn a single trick, Scout, you'll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”
Atticus Finch to his daughter, Scout, in “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee (1960)
“You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.”
Indira Gandhi, 20th century Indian political leader
The Touro Communication Club
2 pm - Wednesday, June 16, 2010– Room 223
“Rodney King: ‘Can’t We Just Get Along?”
In 1991, Rodney King was the subject of a violent beating at the hands of the Los Angeles Police Department which was videoed and shown around the world We won’t recount here the details which led up to the beating, but the acquittal of the LAPD officers led to the 1992 LA riots. During the riots, King appeared on television, pleading with the rioters, “Can’t we just get along?” His question continues to reverberate in any discussion about peace. We’ll examine the many sides to King’s provocative question.
Logical Fallacy of the Week #11: “Moving the Goal Posts”
The name of the fallacy comes from a game like soccer or football which has goal posts. In an actual game, it would quite angering if one team decided to change the position of the goal posts. All strategy would change.
In another context, you might call this fallacy, “Changing the Deal.” You think you have agreed to one set of circumstances and suddenly you find details of the deal have been changed. You find many people moving the goalposts when it benefits them.
· Real estate – A tenant agrees to rent an apartment with a refrigerator and stove. When she arrives, she discovers they are not in the apartment and the landlord denies that they were part of the agreement.
· Car sales – You think that you are buying a particular car, but find that only the more expensive model is available. (Also called ‘bait and switch.”) This behavior applies to all sales situations.
· Academic classes – Your professor changes the criteria on which you thought you were being evaluated. Perhaps a student argues that the professor gave her an A when the professor’s grade book shows a “B.”
· Relationships – Either the male or female promises his intended that certain things will happen– a fancy car, a fancy vacation, lots of luxuries and blings - and they don’t, some is mighty angry.
· The TV commercial – two children are promised ponies by a male adult; one gets a toy, the other gets a real one. The jilted child feels cheated because the adult changes the deal.
· Product content – the price of the product is kept the same but the amount of the ingredients is decreased
There are dozens of situations in which the deal is changed by a shark preying on the innocent. The greatest tragedy is the loss of trust by the deceived party. Trust is fragile to begin with but naïve trust is brutalized by predators. Its extreme is date rape when the woman has one set of expectations and the male has another.
Strategies – Realize that trust evaporates in the face of betrayal. Sad to say, the reality of our learning curve almost demands some level of betrayal in order to toughen awareness at the risk of instilling a permanent fear. Obviously, you need to read the very small print of every contract. Less obvious, you need to listen closely to what is said by the salesperson or the teacher or the love interest.
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.A Note to Communicators:
“Why People Can’t Get Along”
Like so many positive traits, many people believe that imagination belongs to others. “I don’t have an imagination.” “I couldn’t have thought of that.” “He’s so creative – he’s got a good imagination.”
Not true. We all possess imagination in different ways and to different degrees. The imagination of artists is easy to acknowledge. But the stereotype of a scientist or engineer is that of an unimaginative drudge. Einstein’s quotes above demonstrate the opposite.
How do we recognize imagination at work? Imagination depends on context. If the context is repeated without variation, there is no imagination at work.
· The solider is trained not to be imaginative. Who wants an imaginative soldier who must follow a given set of orders under fire?
· The bureaucrat has a set of procedures to follow. If he does not follow them, chaos ensues. We are all familiar with the imaginative bureaucrats who give incomplete or wrong information.
· The assembly line worker is another person who must follow a series of procedures for the product to work. You may remember the famous skit on “I Love Lucy” where Lucille Ball is sorting tomatoes on an assembly line. She starts questioning her decision of which tomato is good or bad, hilarity follows.
Now when the soldier, bureaucrat and assembly line worker is finished with their assignment, they are free to let their imaginations run wild. Unfortunately, the training to follow orders and not think has taken over all the behavior and imagination is snuffed out.
Since imagination is a precious commodity that needs to survive – and thrive, it needs basic rules to be productive. Imagination can begin several ways.
· It can begin with a dream, often a visual picture. The visualization may be vague at the beginning.
· It may be just an impulse – “There’s something wrong here.” “This has got to be better.”
· It may appear by serendipitous accident. Some interruption, an accident, a connection between two unlikely elements.
The genesis of imagination is the easiest phase. Then next phases are more difficult. Here many people quit. A professor, when asked to follow up on an idea he suggested, said, “My responsibility is to suggest ideas. It is for others to follow up on them.”
If you are to be serious about developing your imagination, you must decide to commit to developing the idea. You must set a deadline for completion. As the adage says, “A dream without a deadline is a fantasy.”
Using Thomas Edison’s statement, “Invention is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration” as a model, you need to
· Make a selection as to which idea you want to work on to its completion,
· Next, you will spend a period of time brainstorming the range of possibilities. Here your imagination has unfettered liberty. The crazier the possibilities the better.
· Gradually, a constellation of ideas begin to coalesce around a central theme or pattern,
· Once the pattern comes into focus, the idea then starts to be refined again and again.
· After many trials, a final outcome becomes frozen and then is presented to the public.
This is the creative process, the outcome of imagination. For some it happens quickly. For others, it may take time. For still others, the process is never completed because of intervening factors and events or the creator’s fatigue or disillusionment at the process or the direction of the project or for a hundred other reasons.
At every turn, imagination and the creative process that imagination engenders is fragile. Distractions, discouragement, all kinds of mental, occupational or domestic obstacles delay, dismantle or destroy imagination and the creative process.
Promiscuity is imagination’s enemy. Like a marriage, you must make a commitment to your idea, despite the obstacles. Otherwise, we end up like Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront,” saying, “I coulda been a contender.”
UPCOMING CONVERSATIONS:
June 23, 2010 - “Getting Organized: First Things First” How do I prioritize? What rationale do I use? Which system best suits me? How do I measure my improvement? An invisible part of everyone’s life is being organized. As our lives get busier, we need to be organized. No one starts off being organized. Some learn more quickly than others. The business people are usually ones who are very organized without being overbearing. We’ll try to identify the tricks people employ to keep their lives together. What about distractions? We’ll talk about how increased pressure affects our organization. This should be a very practical session.
June 30, 2010 – Emotions: Anger: Fighting Fury; Clues to recognizing triggers of rage whether they are people, places or things and ways to overtake them before they overtake you. This is a familiar emotion to all of us. We may recognize it others, but do we recognize it in ourselves? We cannot hope to fully understand this emotion, but we’ll try to discover how many ways the emotion of “anger” manifests itself in ourselves, in others, in the world. With luck, this will be a cool and dispassionate discussion about a very hot topic.
What about one of these topics?
“Repetition”
“Meaning”
“Why Does History Repeat Itself?”
“Heroism”
“Concentration”
“Coping with Adversity”
Student Poetry showcase
“Empathy”
“Connecting the Dots”
Role play of cynical people
“Cold Calling in Sales”
“He’s Just Not That into You”
“Money”
“Critical Listening Institute: Ravel’s ‘Bolero’”
“Criticism – Giving and Receiving”
“Logical Fallacies”
“Freedom II”
“Gender Communication II”
“SPAR Debate”
“Distraction II”
“Negotiation II”
“Imagination II”
And dozens of others!
Compare the notice of the session with what really happened!
What happened on Wednesday, June 16, 2010?
Imagination
Many people limit this human ability to the arts and artists, but everyone has an imagination which can be the springboard for all kinds of enterprises in business and the professions. We’ll talk about what imagination is and can do. If we’re lucky, we’ll even do some imagination exercises.
Newcomer Nina Davila joined Richard Green, Gena Bardwell, Carlisle Yearwood and Hal Wicke for a short but discursive yet interesting exchange:
“What is the root of imagination?”
“Image.”
“What is image?”
“The game face we put on when we go out into public.”
“How we like to think of ourselves.”
“I am an entertainer and I am quite conscious of the image I project.”
In their search for approval from an audience, the actor’s persona mixes with that of the character.
“We put on a mask because we are afraid of failing.”
Insecure.
“If you are not a B.I.T.C.H., they’ll eat you out.”
“Ego doesn’t mean talented.”
Compare Joan Rivers and Sandra Bullock.
Meryl Streep as Julia Childs and Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side”
Lucille Ball.
Samuel Coleridge
Imagination at work
The poem tells you what to do.
The “I” disappears
We see in our mind’s eye.
I like what I like.
Where has the story gone?
The music business has gone down with the reality shows which make money.
The goal of the music business for age 12-18 is to make money
Making products, not music
Alicia Keys’ story
“We are the World.” You can repeat perfection
E.E. Cummings
The ability to go back and capture an image
Tchaikovsky’s “Capriccio Italien
The remainder of the unfocussed discussion focused on food, PowerPoint, T.S. Eliot, among other topics.
The discussion went in an unanticipated direction. We will reschedule the topic to further examine what imagination is.
Professor Yearwood offered to present a program on T.S. Eliot, the American/English poet of the 20th century. The Communication Club will inaugurate a new series called, “Faculty Colloquy” with the Eliot program of Professor Yearwood. He has been working on Eliot’s magnum opus, “The Wasteland.”
Gena Bardwell suggested that the Department create a Communication bibliography.
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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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