Clowns from Amsterdam
11 years ago
Friday, January 16, 2009
Comunication matters
"One cannot not communicate' is the first axiom by Watzlawick. Silence is communication, just as loud as screaming. Hiding away, not speaking however is analog communication. Because we communicate by saying and naming things, feelings, opinion and by showing them through our behavior. The problem with the analog communication however is that it has several meanings: my tears can be because of laughter, the wind, the situation in Gaza... The context may show that. The problem with the digital communication (speaking , writing, signing and such) is that words can loose their meaning. Example: the humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip is unacceptable. We have heard, read it so often that it has lost its force. There is not consequence. We want the Russians to start pumping gas because it is unconscionable to hold the Europeans hostage in their dispute wit the Ukraine. Well, all shades of diplomatic and less diplomatic expressions have been used and nobody knows what the words really mean, when is 'unpardonable' without consequences? 'Disproportionate violence' leads to human suffering and the loss of power of our language. Whatever we say, won't stop the perpetrators of that disproportionate response. And yet, we have to speak up, because not speaking up in this case would be condoning what is happening in Gaza. Ahimsa: do not harm any living being. I thank the Women in Black who silently, but bravely stand in Israel, in Amsterdam, in London,in the Balkan, standing for peace and non-violence.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
If one's language has been distorted, one cannot not not communicate using it. As the great linguist Lenny Bruce demonstrated, all words have at least two meanings, the one intended by the speaker/writer, the one heard by the listener/reader. If a malevolent mutt like Gingrich comes along, and purposely perverts the language, the terms, in a particular field, such as republican politics, which he did, by assigning opposite meanings to words, then the language becomes not a tool of communication, but a means of obfuscation, purposefully misleading. Which makes it perfect for hypocritical, mendacious Cabals, such as the current, just departing, NeoConZionist-controlled US administration. Not that the US is free of this cabal, but it's influence has been lessened a bit, in the Executive branch of the US government. At least, we hope so.
ReplyDeleteProblem is that we see and communicate trough a mirror. Our own miror. So we do the same if we interpret someone other!....It's also very difficult see the miror of the others...
ReplyDeleteIt's at least as difficult to see our own mirror. For if we attempt to examine ourselves, we must use our brain as the microscope. And if our microscope has a flaw, it will be reflected in our mirror, probably rendering it invisible, at least to us.
ReplyDeleteTrue Watzlawick disciples know that absence, too, is a form of communication, since all else is. And since everyone, at all times, is absent from all whom are not in the immediate vicinity, this means we are all communicating with the universe of those who are not there. Or 'Here'. Wherever 'there' or 'here' is. And we should all be thankful that silence is a form of communication, otherwise we'd all be nuttier than we are, due to the constant cacophony to which we'd be subject, no matter where we were. Or 'are'. And this concludes 'Philosophical Communication 101'.
ReplyDelete