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Verbal self-defense 2

By Justin Podur at Aug 26, 2006

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I wanted to say a few more things about Suzette Haden Elgin's system for 'verbal self-defense'. The central idea she presents is that we can use language to create an abusive environment, or we can use language to create a non-abusive environment. Where the 'self-defense' comes in is when you're in a situation with someone who is being abusive - there are some ways to feed the abuse or escalate it, and other ways to basically deprive it of oxygen. Elgin has made an overview handout here. I'm tempted to reproduce the handout and explain each piece, but I will trust that people who are interested can follow up. Instead I'll just discuss two pieces, and their relevance to political work and debates. The first piece is the main reason I stopped getting into long email debates except when there is a public forum and a very good reason, and it is from Elgin's 'Metaprinciples': A. Anything you feed will grow. B. Anything you starve, smother, or neglect will fester or die. C. Every language interaction is an interactive feedback loop. D. The only meaning an utterance has in the real world is the meaning the listener understands it to have. E. Mismatch is a warning sign; watch for it. Elsewhere in her work Elgin discusses how verbal abusers get certain 'rewards' for what they do. They attack in order to elicit an angry response, in order to get your undivided attention, in order to shut you down or silence you or put you in your place. Any of these different responses is a reward to a verbal abuser, and hence 'feeds' the abuse. In my time, I have fed a fair amount of it, before I came across Elgin's work and the simple statement that 'anything you feed will grow'. The other piece I want to discuss has to do with the benefit of the doubt. I am frequently amazed at how ready people who know each other reasonably well are ready to jump to the worst possible interpretation of what someone says. Accusations then follow. This particular problem could be avoided through the use of what Elgin calls 'Miller's Law': "In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of." (George Miller; 1980.) Our tendency when we hear someone say something that strikes us as unacceptable is to assume that it is false and try to imagine what's wrong with the person who said it. (As in: "That's ridiculous! He's only saying that because he's stupid/biased/ignorant/trying to trick me/..." and so on.) This guarantees communication breakdown; instead, use Miller's Law. The proper response when someone says, "My toaster has been talking to me!" is to give the speaker your full attention, ask, "What has it been saying?", and then listen carefully. Why do I think this matters for leftists? Two reasons. First, there is an intrinsic value here. We have all been verbally abused. Probably all of us have been verbally abusive at times. Removing this from our lives by not doing it ourselves would add a lot of quality to our lives, and some of that can be done now, without having to dismantle all the systems of power and oppression. The second reason is that our society is so atomized and that alienation has deep effects, one of which I think is a craving for community, meaning, and intellectual stimulation. These are all things that leftists could potentially offer, do reasonably well, and cheaply. When people do have interactions - at work, with family or friends - these are often loaded and fraught with verbal abuse. If leftists could offer an environment free of such abuse, people would be attracted to it out of sheer relief. The reverse is also true. My own experience is that leftists are exactly as abusive as other parts of society. A bit less in some ways, a bit more in others. At times I have felt like left events were tests of endurance: if you can sit through two or three hours of this boring talk or meeting, sacrificing social or leisure time, you can really show you care. The result is leftists offer no relief from everyday pain and alienation, which means missed opportunities. If folks are interested, I'd welcome comments about verbal attack experiences activists have had and Elgin's system (esp miller's law and metaprinciples).

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Person

Invitation to Contribute to Journal Issue on Blogging

By Benton, Michael at Sep 02, 2006 15:56 PM

Justin,

I would like to extend an invitation to you to join in on a collective blogging section of our upcoming winter issue of Reconstruction  http://reconstruction.eserver.org/  

Here is the original call:

http://dialogic.blogspot.com/2005/06/cfp-theoriespractices-of-blogging.html

Our intent in this section of the issue will be to collect a wide range of bloggers and link up to their statements in regards to why they blog (something many of us are asked) and any statement they have on the theories/practices of blogging.

If you already have a post on this you can feel free to use it, or, if you are interested, you can submit a new one.

We will link to each statement from the issue at our site, with the intent of creating a hyperlinked list of statements on blogging that can serve as an introduction to blogging (or an expansion of knowledge for those already blogging). 

You can contact me at the gmail address if you are interested.

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Person

Re. Elgin's philosophy

By Kissenger, Clark at Aug 29, 2006 08:44 AM

Posted by Kelvin Yearwood:

Justin, thanks for coming back to me on the above. I think you're right, and I should be self-prepared with some tools for robust but productive engagement with self-righteous police types as I should be with people who aggressively attack leftist positions.

On a more positive note, the guy who lives in the flat below me has all the UK Tory (i.e. Republicanesque) instincts you could imagine. I have tried various forms of engagement with his pronouncements about the natural ascendancy of business interests, the natural heirarachies which develope from such etc...

I use a strategy involving a combination, e.g. of putting forward as succinctly as possible arguments or strategic information challenging these assumptions, sometimes letting something go without agreement or challenge, or outright laughter at something I consider outrageous and probably deployed to wind me up. We actually have quite healthy discussions, and his anti-New Labour, anti-war in Iraq position (counter to his natural political homeland, the UK Conservative Party) gives us some useful common ground.

But I think Elgin and co. have developed ideas which can be fashioned into social tools for leftists. And I will certainly be looking into their thoughts in more detail and trying to make my own social interaction a more sophisticated thing. I don't know whether you or other people would agree, but I think part of the problem is not taking the policing or aggressive counter positions personally. We have to somehow distance ourselves from that.

When I have had a eureka moment and simply not risen to a bit of face-to-face or other type of flaming, there have been unusual and sometimes spectacular results. Simply by suprising the flamer it is possible to not reinforce the behaviour - something I so obviously failed to do on the march I mentioned. I kind of know all this, but it's perhaps more a case of making it a conscious project, which we develope with experiences.

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Person

The role of clipped contempt

By Kissenger, Clark at Aug 26, 2006 13:35 PM
Thanks for the story Kelvin. I wonder about the role of clipped contempt, as it's a response I have had more than once. I think it does impose some cost on that kind of behaviour, since no one likes to be treated with contempt. On the other hand, it can feed the behaviour since it would lead to anger and more righteousness. The righteous behavior police types are never so confirmed in their righteousness as when they draw the inevitable anger and contempt - they decide that it's evidence that people can't handle the truth and as proof that what they said hit home... Elgin often says that verbal attacks "shouldn't be allowed to work". What's harder is figuring out how to not make them work...

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Person

Re Millers Law

By Kissenger, Clark at Aug 26, 2006 11:44 AM

Posted by Kelvin Yearwood:

Recently here in Bristol, UK I went on an anti-Israel invasion of Lebanon invasion. The abuse I received was actually from one of my fellow activists.

I had thrown on a Famous Grouse (whiskey) tee-shirt (the head of the tee-shirt is blue due to a rather hazey, subliminal image of a saltire colouring it that way) at the end of a week's work and rushed to the place where the march began.

At the end of the march a young woman aggressively asked me about the shirt with a 'sparrow' on it with the 'American flag' - she suggested that sparrows or whatever it was did not have blue heads in the wild, and, anyway, everybody else had made the effort to put on more suitable, worthy tee-shirts.

I treated her with clipped contempt, which is not what Miller proposes of course. The problem is that it takes quite a lot of energy just to turn up at a march at the end of a working week without having to pander to a psychotic fucking troll who is meant to be, broadly speaking, on your side.

I know perfectly well that I am thinking in a way that is not productive, but dealing with the puritanical and paranoid elements of the so-called left in the UK is pretty energy-sapping in itself.

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