Carl Rogers' seven principles of communication:
1. Highly structured and rule-governed situations tend to be threatening and to reduce communication.
2. Threat inhibits communication. When a person feels threatened by what another person is saying, he or she is apt to stop listening in order to reduce anxiety and protect the ego.
3. One reduces communication by anticipating answers and having preconceptions about what the other person is going to say.
4. One increases communication by establishing an atmosphere of trust and suspending judgment until another person has finished speaking.
5. One reduces threat and increases the chance of communication by demonstrating that one understands the other person’s point of view.
6. Strong statements of opinion often put people on the defensive and discourage real communication.
7. Biased language increases threat and reduces communication; neutral language decreases threat and increases communication.
An example here, from 2:30 to 3:30
A Warning about CBO Scoring
5 hours ago
5 comments:
But what happens if you really aren't neutral? I understand the value of not pushing strong opinions with too much strength, but neutrality seems to me to be, at least occasionally, not particularly desirable. (As a caveat, I do think that opinion should be as informed as possible.)
That's an excellent question, Makayla, a question I've been wrestling with the whole time I've been thinking about this slightly fluffy rhetorology stuff: what are the limits of "trying to get along"?
I know there are limits, but I still don't know exactly where they are. So . . . I'll have to keep thinking about it and respond later. Perhaps in a separate blog post.
But if anyone has ideas I'd be interested in hearing them.
I'm still wrestling with this, but here's what I've got so far:
I think that overtly biased language is called for in cases of extreme injustice, but only after all attempts at communication have failed. And I still have a hard time saying that because it seems that Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity use this reason ("extreme injustice") to justify their antics. Who's to say what counts as injustice?
I also think it's possible for speakers who aren't neutral about a given topic to follow Rogers' seven principles. For instance, if an angry conservative wants to convince a liberal that Roe vs. Wade was a bad idea, they would do well to avoid spouting terms like "baby killer" and "pro-death." They'd want to instead frame their argument in unbiased language (i.e. "fetus") if they want to have a valid, reasonable discussion.
But say that this conservative doesn't want to tone down their language. Say that they hope the shock of their biased language ("baby killer") will more honestly describe their stance and will open up the eyes of their opponent. It's possible that the liberal will be convinced, but it's more likely that they will feel so threatened by the biased language that they will completely resist the conservative's argument. In other words, the liberal will probably remain unchanged, as we've seen from the debates for the past (nearly) forty years about Roe vs. Wade.
But then again, Christ, Gandhi, ML, MLK, St. Paul, martyrs for any movement against dictatorship and tyranny, used biased and charged language . . . so I'm left still thinking about the limits of rhetorology. How do we know when we've sufficiently tried to communicate calmly?
Perhaps it has something to do with motive. I know that's a nearly impossible thing to judge in anyone but oneself, but I think that the people you listed at the end of your comment, for the most part, had fairly good motives. And it seems that even when extreme language was used, it was often done with love and desire for common good at the heart of it. What is so frustrating about Hannity (who did not always seem to me to be so rash and unnecessarily provocative) is that it seems he has bought into the show.
In the end though, since we can really only change ourselves anyway (at least, we have to change ourselves before we can hope to influence others) perhaps motive is quite important. I can often tell when I'm acting out of one sort of motive as compared to another. I don't always like to admit it, but if I force myself to a moment of truth, I can. :)
So, perhaps if harsh and biased language is spouted angrily or without care for the person on the other end of the conversation then it becomes a problem. But when it is thought out--even considered carefully with the other person in mind or the other argument in mind--and the goal is to persuade for the betterment of others, then it's not as harmful. It's kind of like Dave said the other day--there's a big difference between wanting to be right and trying to be true.
Yes, motive is hugely important. It's something the most acclaimed modern rhetorician of all, Kenneth Burke, wrote about repeatedly (in A Grammar of Motives, A Rhetoric of Motives, etc.). Burke says (and Booth says this too) that one of the purposes of studying rhetoric is to understand motives more keenly so that we don't get duped by deceivers and so that we understand our own rhetoric as well.
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