Dear Organlearners,
Douglas Max <dmax@bellatlantic.net> writes:
> It starts with a discussion between At and me where he gave me the
> "homework" of thinking about political correctness to investigate the
> "rich picture" lying therein. Personally, I don't think I have enough
> "paint," but I'll begin to prepare the canvas and offer it up for you to
> paint upon.
Greetings Doug,
The few strokes you have painted on the canvas allowed me many ways
to enrich the picture in my mind. I have read through your
contribution once a day for quite a number of days, always seeing new
possible developments. Thank you very much.
> Although we don't hear a lot about the buzzword Politically Correct (PC)
> much more in the US, we see constant vestiges of it. The goal is not to
> hurt anyone by insulting them with a label (fat, dumb, short, black)...so
> we created better labels (weight-challenged, special, vertically
> challenged, African-American) hoping that these "neutral" labels would
> spread to an entire non-judgmental syntax.
On the hand, I believe it is of utmost importance to take care of
every word which we use in our communiques. Thus I have a positive
feeling towards PC.
But on the other hand, as you pointed so clearly out above, there is
also something phoney about PC. A PC label still hurt a person, but
the person is not able to pinpoint the source of the hurt, ie. the
hurt now becomes tacit. The "trick" is to use a label which does not
connect to the mental model of the person who receives the message,
but which clearly expresses the mental model of the person giving the
message.
But it is especially your phrase "an entire non-judgmental syntax"
which made me think much deeper. The richness of a language becomes
apparent in the qualities (predicates) of the beings (nouns) and
becomings (verbs) used in a sentence, namely adjectives and adverbs.
This richness is used to reflect the richness of the thoughts of the
sender. The trouble begins when the receiver of the message has not
evolved to the same level of richness of thoughts. There are many
reasons for this mismatch in richness of thoughts: age, disabilities,
deprivation, different value system, etc.
The trouble is that the receiver perceives these qualifications not
as emergences, but as retributions resulting from judgements. Thus
"an entire non-judgmental syntax" would be one free from predicates.
In other words, the use of the language immerges into a sort of baby
talk or pidgen talk. This is a sort of PC that we can do without. But
we should also avoid the use of very complex sentences with many
clauses as well as qualities stringed upon qualities. I myself try to
establish a harmony between these two extremes, leaning slightly
towards the complexity so as to challenge the other person.
Most interesting to me is that whereas PC is very important in a
monologue, it has no use in a dialogue free of judgements.
Unfortunately, a dialogue is not merely a sequence of monologues
going into opposite directions. I have observed many dialogues in
which I have participated and tried to systemise the suceeses and
failures in these dialogues. The following is a summary. In a
dialogue each person in the receiving mode examines thoroughly the
mental model and system thinking of the sender person. As I see it,
the initial goal is to make as much as possible use of the mental
models and system thinking of the other dialogue members until a
harmony has been establsihed. Thereafter the goal is to weave in the
own mental model and system thinking. I other words, first learn form
all the others and then allow them to learn from you.
> How does this hurt us and our organizations? All those systems that would
> like to learn?
>
> If we simply go after solutions on a surface level (ie, by relabeling)
> we're going to miss the forest for the trees. Do employees at XYZ company
> feel better because they've been right-sized out of work than if they'd
> been fired? I suspect they feel even worse because of the disingenuous,
> euphemistic way the muckity-mucks side step the reality...and presumably
> sleep better at night.
Doug, I have learnt through many years by bits and pieces that those
who try to fool other people and often succeed with it, do not have
peace, not even in bed. Since war and peace do not go together, they
are forever on the war path, eventhough they cleverly manages to
disguise it. They even try to fool other people with peace talks, but
they certainly do not walk the piece. Although they may become
extremely clever with their body language, their eyes betray them
(unless they wore dark glasses).
What is it about their eyes which betray them? The eyes are cold like
that of a reptile (cold blooded animal). They stare when they should
have meandered, and vice versa. They dart according to the mental
calculations when they should have opened up to a caring heart
within. When they do fix upon another person, they trace the hurt
caused in the person. They reflect from their surface glaring images
rather than shining with love coming from deep inside. In short, the
eyes cannot be subjected to political correctness.
> Will we ever get to a real political correctness? What is 'correct' for
> relations with people?
Maybe the name "political correctness" was used to imply "dishonest
correctness". It is a sad reflection to our political systems.
But I do believe, as I have written in the beginning, is in something
which I may call as "Communication Correctness". Maybe this what you
have meant with "real political correctness". We cannot have dialogue
every day everywhere. But we have at least to try avoiding hammering
each other with our monologues.
> If we're so sensitive to others feelings that we don't say what we really
> think, is the result less hurtful?
This is an extremely important problem. It is possible to say to
other people what we really think once a dialogue without judgement
has been established. There is no doubts in my mind about it.
But is it possible in other communications which are not dialogues
without judgement? I wonder. Take, for example scientific
publications. I have studied the publications of great 20th century
scientists like Bohr, Planck, Einstein, Schroedinger, etc. Somehow
these publications taught me very little how they thought. Only when
I began to read their metascientific ponderings, letters, popular
articles and biographies, I began to become aware of what they really
thought.
Doug, this picture of PC, or rather CC, is still far from rich. I
think that there is still a lot of painting to be done.
Maybe I must one day tell a story about PC and how it almost wrecked
a tour in another country.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
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