Unintentional Communication

This Republican primary season has become a fine example of the difficulties of directing communications to a limited audience. All of these would-be nominees try all-out to woo the likely Republican primary voters, essentially Tea Party activists. None of them seems to notice that the entire country watches newscasts, and only Fox News has any sympathy for them. This leads to fascinating spectacles again and again.

Early on, we saw Sarah Palin spouting whatever came to mind, complete with a reality TV show and a bus tour, only to realize that continuing as a celebrity is safer and pays more than actually trying to run for President. I suspect that she might have caught on that a majority of the voters do not believe she could see Russia from her front porch.  Her successors almost make her look sensible, and that is a difficult task.

Michelle Bachmann (remember her?) knew she would not have to use facts and figures to please the Tea Party. She was doing well without that, but then Newsweek put her picture on their cover looking crazy.  Really crazy. Someone claimed that "crazy" was the only kind of picture available, and she drowned in the waves of laughter. Ron Paul comes and goes in the polls. The problem with him seems to be honesty. Congressman Paul appears to be a libertarian at heart, and that works fine on issues such as smaller government and lower taxes, but he would rather not outlaw sex or attempt to imprison anybody the Tea Party disapproves of.  Governor Perry of Texas tends to talk like a drunk in a bar, which would be less of a problem if his many competitors pointed it out less often. Herman Cain knew the right words (except for that 9-9-9 thing) but quickly got a reputation for sexual harassment and at least one long-term adulterous affair. The Tea Party does not approve of sex for fun under any circumstances. Mitt Romney has somehow maintained a decent position in the polls through all of this. I suspect he depends on the non-Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, because he makes sense when he talks most of the time. Unfortunately, he has a record that would serve a Democrat well, he changes his stated positions often, and he is a Mormon. While I see Mormons as a kind of fundamentalist Christian, many in the Tea Party see them as some bizarre “other” creature, possibly out to destroy them.

So all of these people parade before the devout followers of Rush Limbaugh et al., trying to reach the Republican convention with enough delegates to grab the nomination so they can run against President Obama.  They debate again and again, looking more and more foolish. They attack each other, using old pictures, past statements, and wild accusations.

The great thing for Obama is that they also parade before the rest of the USA. Obama will not need to spend as much money as usual on making new advertising against whichever one of these people outlasts the others. He can just use video of the debates and information the Republicans have already uncovered in this primary season.

The Republicans seeking the nomination are communicating more effectively than they know. Unfortunately for them, they are telling all Americans, not just the party faithful, who they are.

Book Review: Pictures of the Mind

Pictures of the Mind: What the New Neuroscience Tells Us About Who We Are
Miriam Boleyn-Fitzgerald
FT Press, 2010

Here's a book on brain imaging, and it turns out to have everything to do with communication. After all, communication of any sort originates in a brain (mind) and is directed to other brains (minds). Beyond that, people find it easy to believe they understand their own actions, moral values, and identity. Many people even believe that their memories given a clear and complete picture of their lives. This book addresses all of those questions, and the answers will enlighten readers.

Pictures of the Mind opens with a discussion of the differences among people in different non-responsive states; some are essentially dead, some not. Work on those distinctions should matter a grat deal to anyone whose loved one(s) cannot respond to stimuli. In fact, because accidents or illnesses can put anyone in such a state, this matters for all of us.


Having made a strong beginning with that important topic, Pictures of the Mind goes on to examine a new understanding of how people can change their personalities (emotional responses to life) by effort and why that matters so much, which includes a discussion of something I have learned from experience, that meditation is a more effective treatment than medication for some illnesses.

The chapter on happiness should help cheer readers after the serious topics, and happiness turns out to have a serious side itself because happiness and health go together. This also marks Pictures of the Mind as more than a discussion of illness; health, mental as well as physical, needs study. Then comes  unhappiness; the next fascinating finding is that addicts have important brain responses in common with people who suffer chronic pain; progress in studying one might lead to progress with the other. This chapter adds a great deal more to that finding.

The most interesting part of the entire book for many readers will be the chapter on morality. This addresses whether the "brain" is exactly the same as the "mind" as well as the fact that the brain handles different moral decisions in measurably different ways, with contradictory results. Equally interesting, young brains do not have the same capacities or the same responses as grown-up brains. A fascinating discussion of legal and moral responsibility ensues, considering both people with impairments and "normal" (no measurable defects) citizens. Of course, spirituality, religion, and whether they are separate from the mind become a running thread in this section.

The chapter on memory (including releasing the power of or even removing traumatic experiences) and the concluding chapter on the "self" continue the fascinating quest to understand what it means to be human. The author is considerate enough to include a list of resources at the end of her book, so readers can continue learning about this fascinating subject.

Book Review: Willful Blindness

Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril, by Margaret Heffernan; 2011, Walker & Company, New York.

According to the bio on her book jacket, Margaret Heffernan is a former producer for BBC radio and TV and has been CEO of several interactive media companies. She came across the term “willful blindness” in the transcript of the Enron trial, and it so interested her that she eventually wrote this book about it. The term “willful blindness” means “you are responsible if you could have known, and should have known, something that instead you strove not to see (p. 2).” It matters not whether this avoidance was conscious or not. As with so many books, the subtitle makes the point. This becomes a communication topic because none of us can reach an audience that will not listen.

Heffernan goes on to examine in detail ten important causes of willful blindness, with examples ranging from match.com’s use of affinity (like attracts like) to the role of fatigue in the disastrous explosion at BP’s Texas City oil refinery to the factor of being too sure of one’s ideas in the collapse of the world economy.  She makes interesting connections by means of these causes. For example, Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, held onto the idea that “free, competitive markets are by far the unrivaled way to organize economies (quoted on p. 59)” long after the derivatives market endangered the economy in ways that he, of all observers, should have seen. He chose to hold onto what he already believed rather than see the facts in front of his face, a trait he shares with much of the world’s population, including some folks who believed that an alien space ship would save them from a world-ending flood back in 1954. Even after their entire prophecy proved false, most of them continued to believe, just as many American politicians continue to believe in “free, competitive markets” today.

Heffernan uses a chapter to examine each of the ten causes of willful blindness, and then gives us hope by including a chapter on people who do not blind themselves and one more chapter on ways to reduce one’s own blindness. Heffernan weaves her stories together very neatly around her themes, never losing track of the need to keep the reader involved. She uses a wide range of history and research to support her ideas, but this book reads far better than an academic paper. (Following up the endnotes is optional.) She gives a good bibliography and index, each of which increases the academic value and believability of Willful Blindness.

If you ever ask, “What was he thinking?” or “How could they not know?” read this book.

Willful Blindness

According to a book of the same name, "willful blindness" is a legal term for ". . . the idea that there is an opportunity for knowledge, and a responsibility to be infomed, but it is shirked." (Willful Blindness, by Margaret Heffernan, copyright 2011; Walker Publishing Company: New York.) I am still reading the book, and learning from it. The first three chapters discuss important reasons people ignore or fail to process important information. Expect a book review when I finish the reading. Unfortunately, that must take a back seat to my college courses, but I will persist.

I hope the importance of this to communication hits readers here immediately. Talking to people who fail to listen even if your subject affects them wastes your time and energy. Finding ways through the barriers stands to improve your communication skills much more than using "might" rather than "may" when some expert deems that appropriate.

Stay tuned for further discussions of this and related subjects.

You can take back anything you say . . .

In fact, many organizations and some people take back almost everything they say. You can do so at any time by taking actions that fail to match your words. For example, I attend a "university," which will remain nameless for now. They say wonderful things in their heavy advertising, including the front page of the web site. Then they go and cancel that in so many ways: by having a low graduation rate, some instructors not suitable to teach, many courses  and course web pages apparently prepared by amateurs, and allowing the public to believe they are not accredited (they are). I imagine most readers could give more examples of this. Hypocrisy costs a person or organization in more than morality and ethics; people who could not function at this school are giving their friends, relatives, and blog or social-networking readers word of mouth that the marketing department cannot overcome by words. Hence the heavy, expensive, advertising.

Only a thousand words?

 

 Pictures are often worth more than a thousand words, but they usually need words to explain them. In this case, the words explained why European airspace was being closed after the eruption poured a huge amount of volcanic ash into the air.

Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland from Boston.com April 2010

Communication as my subject

Because I specialize in communication and my major field is Organizational Communication, I have decided to focus this blog on communication. That’s a broad field; it may narrow over time, or I may continue looking at anything involving communication successes, failures, or methods. If communicating fascinates you as much as it does me, we’ll both enjoy this!