Learner Therapist (69) … Digitally mediated relationships

Torrey Orton

Dec. 26, 2016

Who’s at lunch with who?

I was out to a demonstration lunch a while ago. Two demonstrations were occurring: the successful pretence of a great chef and the aspirational pretences of a bunch of diners. The pretentiousness was exemplified by the number of discrete courses – around 20: enough to occupy the whole of the only page in the menu. A socially and ethically interesting question was: who else was there and were those who were there actually there? Why they and we were there would be to follow the pretence path, but that’s another story.

Rather, it was clear from the number of phones tables and in hands that there were others being summoned, cajoled, invaded by the experiences of some diners. Perhaps the reverse was also true in response and maybe some of the apparently sharing diners were actually partaking of their digital partners’ pretences and not really present in the lunch for those moments (either in their own view or the view of their lunch relationship partners). And some connections with unknown unpresent partners on both ends may have been secondhanding the partnerships of the first instance in simultaneous sharings with unknown others…and so on around the digital twittiverse.

If you think that experience is hard to express and, more so, to comprehend, I’m sure you are not alone. Acquaintances of mine who are masters of the digital disciplines continue to amaze themselves with the unintended disclosures of their notionally private selves which blow around the cloud of endless remembering as a result of a burst of communication neediness from the grip of a heart ache or break, or a glass too many. In the same vein of virtuality, we can wonder which of these dining relationships were authentic, real, present (add your favourite behavioural, emotional, or cognitive criterion of existence here). And what would they be being authentic about?

How can we know what happens at lunch?

These kinds of practical implications of relationships are what concern my therapy patients. In fact these kinds of questions / concerns are what people are usually in therapy for – things to do with who can they be usefully connected to in myriad ways and which of those ways are appropriate on criteria that they embrace and think can be embraced by the others, and consequently may actually be embraced in a real relationship. For example, clarity about relationship types would allow increased fine judgment of what type is actually uppermost in one’s own mind and one’s partner(s) mind(s) in a specific relationship moment, event, history and prospect.

I propose that without a systematic way to classify digital relationships on non-digital criteria, we do not know what we’re talking about in discussing, and especially researching, contemporary digitally mediated relationships. Digital criteria are simple: can a digital wire be tripped in a recording device by an effective sensor signal? For an analogue example of criterion domains, are we talking about personal relationships, commercial relationships, organisational relationships, spiritual relationships …and how would we know when a relationship is one, some, or all of these at any one time (and other things not yet itemised)?

And suppose that whatever the type, there is virtuality in play. Most coarsely, is there any difference between a virtual sexual relationship and a real sexual relationship (of the body contact variety)? At least one thing is for sure, so far: no unwanted progeny can result from the virtual one without a shift of level from digital to analogue! On the comestibles side, the longest virtual lunch still leaves a half-full plate of offerings on one side and a wholly empty stomach at the other end of the digital appreciation.

One approach to classifying relationships and behaviours would be Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblance as a tool for grasping realties. It is quite a nice theory of knowledge (which tells us how we can say something is and is such a thing reliably). It is also noticeably not standard issue RCT scientific research reality. Perhaps some research should be on the phenomenology of digital behaviour?

Back to the pretentious lunch…

How could the key physical experiences of the lunch be captured and shared digitally as they are occurring? La Grande Bouffe (1973) did a good job of capturing an imagined experience of dining, as did Tom Jones (1963).  But sharing real experience is notoriously difficult and highly reliant on shared communication skills and relationship depth and intensity in the experience domains of interest. Some experiences cannot be shared with the inexperienced other than by involving them in such experiences, and we are back to relationship depth and intensity. Virtually we may get a feel for the experience, but not the experience. Rather we will be having the experience of a tantalising possibility which may be the experience of an intentional or provocative deprivation, which might then be shared by the virtual attendee with the real one and we’re back to tantalising and provocation. In addition, the range of possible experiences of the virtual kind – email, twitter, text, Instagram, telephone, Skype, … – offer different degrees of deprivation potential, usually out of the awareness of the participants. Bring on the phenomenology!? Give me a ring or a ping if you are interested.

Learner therapist (19)…… systemic problem-solving improvement in relationships

Learner therapist (19)…… systemic problem-solving improvement in relationships
Torrey Orton
June 5, 2012

More tools for talk …and how therapists could help them do it.

 

Problem solving is hard to do

 

Daily life is full of stumbling efforts to fix things, the larger the system the bigger the stumbles…and yet we move on, even with sub-optimal solutions, or even solutions which aggravate the situation.


Striking when the iron is hot is good if you don't burn yourself or the other in the blow. Emotional and conceptual clarity are the key. Hot things cannot be cooled too much or they lose their energy, too hot and you lose your hand, or more. So, how to get started? If the start is wrong what follows will very likely get worse.


An overfull mouth
Problem solving is conceptually obvious and practically mind-bending because the feelings, issues and contexts to be handled are beyond presentation at once. So they have to be parcelled up both to make them accessible to the other and to get them organised for ourselves so they can stay organised under pressure from unexpected forces in ourselves, and the other!


Remember the overfull mouth of thought/feeling/action words which rush for exit at the moment you start opening a volatile issue. This is the everyday challenge of the damaged relationship, ending often in irradiating outbursts or cast-iron inhibitions. Such patterns can be improved a bit by a flexibly systematic approach. It has steps roughly as follows, which are straight out of rational problem solving handbooks. The order of steps matters, but the process should be recursive – doubling back on itself to keep the direction in view, because what we are seeking in such processes comes only fully to light as we go through them. The fullness of the task is seldom known from the start.
I like to think of problem solving as a process like a tumbleweed rolling along the slight inclines and divides of a Mallee farm on a windy day, picking up bits of this and that as it rolls, including other tumbleweeds, dropping off some same bits as well, and ending up in a mass of intertwined tumblers at the fence line where they begin to anchor, safe from the ploughing and reaping of daily farm life to provide the start for the next season. Not even a video of a tumbleweed rolling along can capture all the facets and phases of a problem-solving process, so I'm not too unhappy with my serial depiction below. Just remember to allow yourself to acknowledge all the associations which arise as you pass through it.


The problem solving sequence – an example

Step	Activity	Words / dialogue
Propose –getting something on the agenda; taking initiative	First, a proposal answers the question: 'what should we talk about?' - a statement of the issue of concern to one party, including a description of what it is, why it matters to you and what you want the other to do with it. This should also include an estimation of time required to deal with it and proposal for timing and location of the discussion. Proposal contents are often supplied by the issues chart developed in the first session. This also serves as the base for a shared running agenda and progress documentation. Flagging of volatile material is usually essential to progress with an issue. Start with simple issues which can be executed in one step if the relationship is in perilous condition.	(H) I want to get started on one of our issues. It's not too hot, but warm enough to make me focussed on it. It's our messy house problem. I'd like to get started tonite and have some solution(s) by next Monday. I expect it will take a few hours since we already understand it pretty well. We could start tonite just getting clear – maybe 30 minutes after the kids are in bed - and then follow up with options and decisions over the next nights. How's that strike you? (J) Yup, tonite at 9 say, but only ½ hour for starters. I've got a report to read for work, too. The recursive moment*
Acknowledge and clarify – ensuring joint ownership of the issue; being responsive	Second, acknowledgement and clarification answer the question; 'do we know what we are doing?' Three steps establish shared understanding of the proposal and a willingness to proceed with it: one, mirroring / paraphrasing back the proposal; two, adjusting it to confirm joint ownership; and three, deciding when to discuss it.	Later that day (J) So, I want to be really clear what you're proposing. What I got earlier is: you want to take up the "messy house" issue with the aim of having it fixed by Monday, right? (H) That's it. (J) OK, I want a little detail of what you think the issue is so I'm sure we're close enough to start. We've made that mistake before… (H) Well, I mean we've got a lot of stuff lying around and more coming in while we can't find last week's mags… (J) That's roughly what I think it is, too…so I'm ready to set a time (H) OK, let's agree a discussion schedule with next Monday as completion time, if possible. The recursive moment
Explore - establishing what matters to both – engaging with personal meanings	Third, exploration answers more precisely the question 'what's this all about?' by clarifying in detail why it should be important to both parties; this will involve especially establishing the meaning the issue has for both: its place in their personal and joint lives. This may result in a reformulation of the issue, usually more specific and actionable.	….. (J) …messy to me is not being able to find things…and you? (H) ...well, more finding every walk space cramped by piles of stuff and things looking just "messy"! (J) So what if it's messy..? (H)..Uhm, 'messy' I can't stand...feels like everything's out of control and then I feel out of control…you know what happens then. (J) Uh huh, things get messy between us and I begin to feel things are out of control… (H)..so in a funny way we're both bothered by messy – me first and then you following on as my bother bothers you!! (J) and that reminds me of another factor – when your mother's eagle eyes are cast over us each time she visits…!!! The recursive moment
Options –creating	Fourth, options answer the question 'now what's imaginable?' Usually there are already some options on the table, standing in clashing opposition to each other. The task is to turn them from positions into options. Trying to complete an options assessment in a single go will likely jam the creative, intuitive systems - throwing you back into clashing positions. Spread option finding over a couple of days at least. Provide a shared repository for potential options (e.g. a chart on the fridge). Follow the rules for issues charting: include everything and dispute nothing. Test for assumptions which limit the range/depth of possibilities. A good handle on restrictive assumptions is the word 'should'.	… (J) … remember, we're starting with an anything goes phase here… (H) Sure ...we already mentioned a few things we could do to reduce the 'messy' like: get an idea of what minimum mess is for us both, find some cleaners to organise the mess, and try out a holding pen for incoming stuff to corral the mess before it spreads .What else might be useful?? (J) For me it would be good try reducing my daily contributions to our mess… (H)…and maybe for me to reduce my complaining about that, too.. (J) And, then there's your mother: maybe we could agree on an approach to her expectations?? Maybe signalling how irritating her observations are…or inviting her to make some useful suggestions about how to deal with mess?? Scary thoughts, huh? The recursive moment
Decide	Fifth, decision(s) answer the question 'now what's possible, probable and practicable?' A decision should have an action set in a time framework with some mutually visible quantities attached to it. Start with simple decisions which can be executed in one step if the relationship is in perilous condition. Making effects of the solution testable is a way of ensuring commitment and the option of fine-tuning or changing the decision.	… (J) …so let's go with the cleaners first just to get the stuff neater, more packed, and we'll get a better feel for the shape of the next steps. (H) OK, and while we're at it we'll get them to price a more thorough solution – some storage options, some disposal options and so on. Does that follow? (J) Sure, but only if we have a way of keeping track of how these steps are unfolding, especially how we are managing variations to the solutions as they emerge…. (H) Well, that will probably be harder than agreeing and implementing these first steps… (J) Probably, so we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves if we're a bit slack now and then…. (H)…and here comes my mother again…How about this: we do some of what we've just suggested and then run the result by her for her observations??... (J)…and then modify our next steps somewhat. Sounds good…too good? Anyway, I'll get after the cleaners tomorrow and let you know when things are happening!!. The recursive moment, with special focus on how this solution(s) relates to other parts of your lives together, especially the problematic ones, as reinforcer or detractor from their progresses.

Notice that 3 out of the 5 steps are concerned with establishing the relationship focus of the problem-solving process. This is to ensure a good 'political' foundation for the detail work. This foundation is the basis for shared facts being created in the process – that is, each of you will get a fair go - speaking opportunities should be jointly monitored and adjusted (some things take more time than others, etc., especially if new aspects come into view like long term experience hooks which have blocked earlier work on this subject); and, there's a method for interrupting if hot things suddenly emerge.


The Options and Decisions steps can be unfolded in much greater detail, but technique will not replace bad 'politics'. The temptation to be too rational, too linear, which problem solving techniques usually offer, is often experienced as a power play if the process is failing. It may not be meant that way, especially if your personality is of the more rational, technical sort. Bridging a personality gap, or experience gap, or values gap is the job of interpersonal 'politics' not technique.




Afterword - Some matters of value(s)
Apart from the four 'theories' mentioned in the previous article, there are some other factors affecting relationship improvement out of relationship dysfunction. Here's a few:

Not all outcomes can be equal in the short term; sometimes not even the long term…

 

Not all needs are known at the start of any problem-solving effort, so unpredictable surprises will arise.

 

Not everything is within ones, or both's, power.

 

Doing heavy relationship lifting on a weak preparation is a self-fulfilling expectation of failure, a sign of unconscious pro-forma efforts at improvement. Do not try to do serious things when too tired or preoccupied to do them.

 

Small wins on small things are wins; they provide the whiff of success. Stopping yourselves from diminishing small wins is a critical move.

 

'It all depends' is the correct answer to any invitation to judge the rightness or wrongness of any action. Getting the dependencies right will largely answer the question of right or wrongness. Effectiveness is the most important standard.

 

The most important principle of relationship development is principled flexibility.

 

 

*So, what are the implications of this step for the one(s) which have come before? E.g. does our work at this point change the scale, scope, salience of the previous one(s)?
...and what are the implications for the next step(s)? E.g. what do we need to do to improve them? …what conditions or constraints should we apply to them?

Learner therapist (18)…… systemic communication improvement in relationships

Learner therapist (18)…… systemic communication improvement in relationships
Torrey Orton
May 14, 2012

Tools for talk …and how therapists could help them do it.

 

Motivating hope

One thing that's hard to sustain, not to say increase, is productive motivation. A useful starting place is to assess the couple's motivation for the improvement of the relationship. I usually do this early on by asking both to assess their present hope on a 1(near nothing) to10 (totally committed) scale. It is a gut-feel judgement which later provides a shared benchmark for progress, especially if the first assessment is quite different between them. This activity also outs the unspoken doubt between them about where they really stand at the moment. The level of motivation is felt as the level of present danger to the relationship.

 

Another pathway to motivation is the couple's needs, especially their shared ones. Some couples are a bit short on shared needs, apart from those involved in building a home. Such goals are often divvied up on an implicit, gendered expectation set: boys take care of X and girls of Y, as has been the case for millennia. Exploring needs is a next step in the session process. But the path is often blocked by unspoken wants.


Getting started speaking the unspeakable…
Speaking which is constrained by the threat of repeated dysfunctional communication is hard to do. It is even harder if there are secrets imbedded in the undiscussables which have been withheld for fear of the dysfunction. Secrets often include personal hurts acquired in the relationship and never acknowledged to each other – experiences of disrespect, lack of interest, disdain: the stuff which gives "dissed" its power.


So, how to get started outing the unspeakable between them? I use a strict approach. It goes like this:

'We're going to start looking at the issues which need resolution for the relationship to improve, survive, or deal with its failure (there's no escaping having to talk, even in failed relationships).These issues will be recorded in language as close to your own as I can get it. The record will be kept in public view and will be available for you to take away with you….

 

The process is simple, but rigid. Each of you will get as many chances as you need to make contributions to the list of issues. You can only make one at a time, sharing turns back and forth. Here's the hard part: everything either of you want to say will be included on the list; the other may not contest or engage with any issue at this time; nor may you.

 

However, you may request an example if you are not clear (most couples seldom need examples – they know what the issues are for each other and many of them are shared, with slightly different meanings, and even if they have not been spoken openly to each other before.

 

Clear? OK…

 

Then, take a few minutes to consider what issues you want to raise. It's really helpful to be very specific. For example, it turned out for one couple that a kitchen renovation project was the forum in which they could explore their respective perceptions of being unrecognised by their partner for contributions they make to the family! This had been going on for months, but the needs driving it had not been heard, or sometimes spoken, or even clear to the couple themselves.

 

So, who wants to go first?'

Having finished for the session, I give them a copy of the chart and the suggestion they add new items as they come to mind over the week, refine existing items to sharpen their clarity and order them in their shared view of the items' importance. This last step yields the starting place for the next session and, often, who will take the lead, since issues are seldom held with the same intensity by both members of a couple.


Without such a tool there's little way to shift the burden of mutually animated distress from a divisive to an engaging motivation source. That distress has two origins: one, the perception of the unfair, inappropriate and so felt to be punishing behaviour by the partner; and two, the frustration of being unable to effectively parry or contain the perceived threat of punishment. The frustration is the more dangerous and less discussable of the two, hence often inaccessible while being the primary motivation of the moment. Not knowing what / how to do something effective is more threatening than doing something wrong which at least counters the threat, even though reigniting it! The cycle is understood and sustainable…often for years. It is the systemic communication dysfunction.


Another system - systematic communication: start with flagging
To break through the systemic dysfunction a systematic approach is necessary. The Wants and Needs exercise makes a start. What follows is another piece of such an approach, a piece which helps break the surge of threatening feelings that characterises the dysfunction for each couple. Common triggers may be either an outburst of anger or a joint withdrawal into a throttled silence.

'Here's a technique for getting a grip on the feelings yourselves before they get a grip on you! It's called flagging. It involves letting the other know when an inflammatory feeling (as defined in the investigation above) is on the horizon. Sometimes one of you knows when such a feeling is emerging before the other; you can feel it in their body language, or in your own. Being able to identify and express such feelings is the most important skill for your future (it will apply across your life). This skill allows interrupting the dysfunctional cycle and, eventually, pre-empting it – keeping the dysfunction at bay by reducing and eventually removing the uncontrollably conflictful conditions in which it thrives!

 

Flagging is simply mentioning that a disruptive feeling is on the horizon of your talk as early as it comes into view. Like the sun, it will be hard to see because it is so bright and oversized at first sight. Eyes naturally shutter. Defenses naturally stutter.

 

We'll do regular work on this technique because it provides the basis of shared facts to anchor difficult discussions. At this point what's shared is the fact of having disruptive feelings. What you will learn is the skill to control feelings by sharing them rather than hiding them. Agreeing that a conversation is likely to be difficult provides a safe space you both can retreat to in the process. The 'flag' marks a need to retreat so it can occur without feeling like and being an assault on the other.'

Content problems – incomprehensible experiences of others, or ours
Some communication dysfunction arises from unshared experience. There is a special kind of talk content problem, namely when the couple's original injuries are from experiences the other has never had, or could never have. Under the pressure of long-term perceived disregard between the couple (re-injuries of old injuries, plus new ones acquired as adults in failing relationship(s)) it is difficult not to hear the other's special needs as another ploy in the competition for attention and control. The perceived claim of the ploy is that the speaker has special needs which justify their demand for attention at this moment. These 'ploys' are repeated regularly in the couple's life, which the other reacts to in a patterned way (in turn perceived as 'ploys'), reinforcing the sense of disregard…and so on it goes. The shared part of such experiences is the fact of feeling unheard. The source may be incomprehensibly different life experiences.


What's such an experience difference look like? Here's one couple example. Just saying these facts to each other was only the beginning of the possibility of understanding their deepest automatic responses (defences) to perceived rejection.

She said, starting to cry uncontrollably: I remember being sent away for two months to summer camp aged 5 so my returned run-away 12 year old sister could "have space" as recommended by a social worker returning her…with the understanding for years after that I should "behave" or get into rouble from father for I knew not what; the reason for the runaway was never discussed…so the boundaries of expected behaviour were never clear, just implicit.

 

He said: (shaking with inner turmoil) I just remembered myself going down the hall of the hospital 30 years ago to see the back specialist in terror about the outcome (I was put in a body brace for 6 months) and mother (who was with me) not asking how I felt, and me feeling I couldn't say because she and father were unable to run the family themselves and I - aged just 14 at the time, eldest child - was carrying the load, down to doing the shopping, cooking and so on.

Another content problem – the unshared, cultural world view. Increasingly people marry, or couple, 'out' of their culture of origin, partly to escape it into something which feels more welcoming. Trouble is, they often do not know the other culture deeply and find some surprises which usually show up as deeply felt role guidelines for men and women. This is a similar, but other, matter to the unshared injuries above.


Treatment for a content problem – a little lecture
When there is impenetrable life experience underlying the dysfunction a structured set of 'lectures' by each member of the couple can be useful. Their subject is: 'how it is to be me with this injury I have'. Note that this step assumes the couple have acknowledged injuries and that these are not going away in the foreseeable future; they are conditions of the relationship. However, one of the coping mechanisms the psycho-socially injured use is to handle everything themselves, so it's hard to share the injuries without feeling they are masking a plea for special treatment or concern, or feeling they are opening themselves to re-injury. Catch-22.


Ensuring both have a go helps mitigate this defence. Negotiating the order of presenting, a detail in managing the process, also helps make it a shared event. Having had the experience of doing shared issues charts, the rules for this exercise are easy. The lectures are presented without objection or contention. Only questions of clarification may be asked or checks of clarity made by paraphrasing impressions to the speaker. A single session should do for two lectures. Follow-on homework could be to continue the exploration, roughly equally dividing time between them. All this is also practice in equal opportunity provision for hearing and speaking between them at all times – another shared platform for joint self-management.


4 systemic social dysfunctions contributing to couples' system dysfunctions


Finally, a systemic reflection. Each of the following social system dysfunctions warrants an article in its own right, so I'll just sketch them here. They are often active in couples' thinking as principles of dis-engagement. They are principles or assumptions in the background. So I call the bunch of them a 'theory'.


One dysfunction: there is a widely held and reinforced 'theory' that injuries can be moved on from; that just trying harder is all that's required; that getting help is a sign of weakness and is probably why one was injured in the first place. This 'theory' is promoted in many ways daily, often without specific intent to do so. Its component beliefs are just assumptions more or less inhabiting much contemporary social thinking, especially in the personal development fields…for example, "don't act the victim"; "that's victim thinking", and so on. The implication, often mentioned by patients, is that to attend to an injury is self-indulgent or a kind of covert pleading for advantage in the relationship – two faces of selfishness. In addition this theory encourages the very sort of behaviour which intensifies injuries: making them secrets.


Another 'theory' is the handmaiden of the first: that we are all responsible for our responses to others', actions regardless of what those actions are. That is, we can choose not to be angry, sad, etc. if we interpret the actions differently. To do so requires a disconnection from the early warning system of our self-protective feelings. It also cannot always be activated before a threat sneaks through to us, not even if we are very skilled at flagging because some of our life is emerging, not planned and scripted, nor scriptable. This responsibility theory implies our perception of hurt is our fault. Change the perception, change the hurt. Not easy when we are children. Not supported when we are hurt adults - see theory one above.


A third theory is that everything is just a perception, the handmaiden's dressing room clerk. Assertions that someone else's experiences are "just a perception" and so explicitly not worthy of receiving greater attention than any other perceptions (especially the speaker's) can be heard in everyday life. It is of course true that experiences are perceptions, so the assertion has the power of an accusation that the other is seeking special consideration for their experience. It also avoids, often intentionally, the challenge which is how do we share perceptions reliably, which we actually do in much of life.


A final 'theory' problem: everything in our culture encourages us to think as and be freestanding individuals, but we need the other to see ourselves. One definition of a psychopath is a person who cannot understand how others feel, and does not care. On the other hand, the socially phobic always care first about how other people see them. All of us may experience moments of feeling desperately exposed to or defiantly indifferent or rejecting of others' judgments. Driving our flights around this spectrum is the need to know and value ourselves – a need we cannot fulfil alone. The economic individual is a psycho-social figment. The therapeutic acknowledgment of this fact can be found in the growing awareness that major psychological trauma cannot be treated solely as an individual injury…it is a social one, too.


Next article will take up how to solve problems – turning issues into actionable matters. Or,

'So you've flagged a hot issue. Now what?'

The Rectifications…of names and things (4) – ‘Wake up call…’

The Rectifications…of names and things (4) – ‘Wake up call…’
Torrey Orton
March 20, 2009

Following the suggestion of Confucius, I continue some rectification of names for our times. Elsewhere I offer some ‘solutions’ to some problems of linguistic degradation. Relevant observations appear towards the end of my most recent Dances with Difference (4) post.

“Wake up call...” We have them just about everywhere, yet few who are not awake seem to be getting more awake. So, why keep using this useless phrase. It is not influential, but once again, like other expressions I’ve rectified, saying it seems to be doing it (waking others up) for the unrepentant users. I keep thinking they’ll wake up to themselves, but they don’t. That’s a kind of sleepiness on my part, isn’t it.

Wherein lies the story of keeping asleep while appearing awake. The core point here is that most of us go about most of our lives asleep waking – that is, on autopilot much of the day, with occasional spurts of focussed consciousness when autopilot ploughs us into an unseen hill of reality. They needn’t be big but they must be sharp enough to permeate our sleepy hides. See David Brooks' effort to do this here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/opinion/20brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion.


It is no bad thing to be on autopilot, as long as the DEW line of our awareness is sufficiently powered to sense the impending. The older we are the more likely we are to be on autopilot. It is our gathered history of proven effectiveness expressing itself in workable solutions to most of living. The younger we are the more attention we have to pay, so young people must be more energetic than the old, and nature made such. This is because they are ignorant and incompetent in many ways, so much so that they prefer the discovery of that ignorance and its associated joys and pains to benefitting from our experience.

Many of our important habits, those of thought the most so, depend on human history for their foundations, core structures and images. We mostly, young and old, think through the past. Watch current reflections by quite smart people on the GFC, among other wake up calls not well answered. For example, there you will find arguments mostly couched in Adam Smith’s 250 year old theses selectively recalled to fill gaps in understanding with apparent authority. See Amartya Sen’s recent view of Smith for a counterpoint.

Like all habits, their serviceability is confirmed by their resistance to change, especially big changes. They have seen it all before. To be experienced, what’s new has to be very brightly lit and sound-staged to get through the perceptual filters of habits. And in our times more than some, we have had a constant assault on the competence of socially constructed reason – the sciences and technologies founding our world now.
This assault ranges from the struggle to make Darwin god or God darwin, to the rapid changes of ‘the research shows’ about diet, hearts, reading scores, the weather, …nearly ad infinitum. Counter evidence to the goodness of our economy also appears persistently – the fat epidemics, the greed epidemics, the extreme everything compulsions of the young, the increasing speeds of everything and the underlying denial of accountability for all these things by those who are supposed to protect and support us.

The effect of the destruction of scientific credibility for the public is to reduce the range and substance of the experiential ‘hills’ our auto-pilot missteps encounter. So the wake ups get louder, raucous, cacophonous … turning into noise which is uninterpretable. We know this produces its own defense by turning off the reception machinery and demonising the callers.

This is not a dream we can wake up to. It’s time for those in power of all sorts to start truth-telling and stop inviting others to wake up by calling from a distance and sending messages to anyones.

The Rectifications…of names and things (1) – ‘Send a message…’
Torrey Orton
Feb. 20, 2009
One tool for obscuring reality is inappropriate or incorrect generalisations. Another is incorrect conceptualising of the world. Contemporary spinspeak is alive with them both. Following the suggestion of Confucius, I will undertake some rectification of names in our times, though perhaps without the same finesse of distinction and definition. However, my aim is to show the way to the concrete, to palpable truths, by way of agreed significations for our signs. This requires demystification and deconstruction. The first of these follows.

Instrumental relationships (see my 2 blogs on “Dances with Difference” for details of relationship types), increasingly dominate civic processes and discourses, and uproot /swamp the intimate ones. One way this is repeatedly imposed on us is this: the prominence of expressions like ‘send a message’ or ‘the message is…’ in contexts where the audience or subject of the message is not present (and often not discoverable in any concrete sense). This is a source of endless wonder – almost an acknowledgement that no communication can occur. The presumed audience is usually the ‘community’, or occasionally a stereotypical sub-community within the ‘community’ – e.g., bikers, bankers, bogans, beachbums, barbies, ….

We know that communication is not a unidirectional encoding-packaging-sending-unpackaging-decoding process of the sender –receiver type typical of communication training. The main reason this construct fails (the sender-receiver one) is that the ‘message’, whatever it is, is truly in the eye of the beholder in the first place and so cannot be seriously claimed to have been sent until ‘reception’ is proven by a ‘receiver’ response – which is mostly undoable in the contexts where ‘send a message’ is the name for the act of attempted communication.

The claim a message is sent implies it must be heard and so settles the need of senders to fulfil their perception of their obligations to others (and implicitly to themselves). Yet, ‘send a message’ is often a plea for an effect which cannot be attained by sending alone. Maybe the speaker knows it. The intended effect therefore is the appearance of caring about the espoused ‘message’. In Australia, examples of this abound in matters like: reducing binge drinking, athletic drug taking, excess non-evidence-based executive remuneration, and on and on. And we haven’t even looked at really serious stuff like climate, GFC, fluids. Foods..… the stuff of question time where it often seems the messages are mostly to themselves, and select audiences in the political apparatus (persons and organisations – the various players).

Where the message is for a clear audience, its intent is often to show that they needn’t worry; they are understood, etc. These tend to be marginal groupings of various sorts with high marginal political potential. (See forthcoming blog called “Political Default” for disproportionate influence achieved by marginal groups). Somebody’s whistling. While we are at it, we should notice that ‘stay on message’ is the supporting cast for the main acting of sending one. Its virtue is persistence in the face of increasingly insurmountable odds that no one’s listening - except other message issuers.