Dear Don, dear LO'rs
Thank you Don, to keep our thinking and discussion on this important
subject.
> Or are boycotts instinctive, natural reactions to the hurt? There's a
> recently developed idiom in America that fascinated me when I first saw
> it: one raises one's hand to someone, palm out, and turns one's head
> aside, saying "talk to the hand!" (because the ears ain't listenin').
> This is used when the other person is saying things one doesn't want to
> hear. Why? Because to face them would be painful. If this is right,
> when faced with a boycott-like situation, the first question should be
> "where does it hurt?"
This question is indeed a subject to systemise. I restrict myself to the
mental hurting, not the physical one (although with boycots this might
also be the case). But let me first list the ways fruitful communication
could be in the wrong way:
1. 'shouting in the desert': nobody will hear, since there are no
listeners
2. talking to deafmans' ears: although there are potential listeners,
nobody is willing to listen
3. 'it goes in one ear and out the other' Someone listens but immediately
forgets, or does not understand ("No brains to stop it")
4. the receiver misunderstands (willingly or unwillinly) you
In all these cases the communicater is hurt by panic, frustration or
irritation. Case 2 is more or less your example and the refusion to listen
has much to do with a too early judgement. This person should read the
sentence in your signature: "if you judge, investigate". This is probably
what we should do when we start to boycot.
There are more reasons of miscommunication which have to do with the
content:
5. insulting, rudeness
or has to do with the quatity:
6. overflow, or too sparse
Case 5 refers also to your example.
In these cases (5 and 6) the receiver is hurted.
> Once a boycott is in effect, it's probably to late to resolve the
> situation cleanly without a lot of pain and effort. But are there ways to
> recognize (in ourselves and others) "incipient boycotts"? Are there early
> warning signs that will alert us to tread carefully to avoid having the
> situation proceed to that point?
I don't know if there are early warning signs. If there are, they might be
recognised by sensitive persons. But those persons give usually a lot of
attention to their own way of communicating and I guess miscommunication
(leading to boycotting) will hardly occur. With modern multimedia
communication it certainly becomes even harder to recognise the possible
early signs.
But maybe 'irritation' and frustration are the best indicators. In these
cases the best lesson is the Seneca-lesson: postpone judgement, sort out
the negative AND positive issues, try to find the real and proven facts,
etc. It is much like what De Bono in his 6 thinking hats tries to explain.
I was thinking of the real political boycots and wonder if the following
would be succesful. We don't like Saddam Hussein, but the boycot of Iraq
will hardly hurt him. It might even make him stronger. However, the
people of Iraq suffers. Maybe we should supply Iraq with a TV for every
family and enough food and milk for the children. This will embarras
Saddam; he can't give this luxery to his people. In the Netherlands the
flower shops promote their product with the slogan: give a bouquet of
flowers as amends. This method avoids on a small scale lots of serious
troubles.
Maybe we should show the people of Iraq our fear for their leader, that we
are afraid for the consequences of his ideas and acts. In England it is
common to start a sentence with: "I am afraid that....". It is a good
starter to show your own vulnerability. In animal life it is a well
practiced method, e.g. a dog lying on its back, showing its vulnerable
belly, will not be attacked further. This way of dealing with Iraq is
certainly much cheaper and probably more effective than a boycot or a
desert storm.
I think that very often we include people in the same level of judgement
as the leader.
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
--Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
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