December 25, 2013

December 25, 2013

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This writing is an experiment in public speech. In public speech what is said or written is listened to or read and understood. This author only calls public speech which is understood Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). Public speech which is misunderstood, or understood very differently from what the speaker or the writer said or wrote, he calls Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). 

This distinction is of utmost importance. Public speech doesn’t make any sense if it isn’t or can’t be understood. It makes sense only if it is understood. As long as it is or can be determined that public speech is understood, we should call it SVB, but if it can’t be determined whether public speech is understood, if it isn’t allowed to or if it is made impossible to differentiate between understanding or misunderstanding, we shouldn’t consider it public speech, we should call it NVB. As long as what is said or written isn’t or can’t be listened to or read, it can’t be understood and it, therefore, can’t be public speech. In public speech we agree because we understand. When  that connection is missing, we aren’t  and we can’t be together. 

As long as we don’t understand each other, there is no such thing as public speech. By calling our lack of understanding NVB, we have a new way of referring to what goes on in the name of public speech.  NVB has been going on in the name of public speech for a long time.  NVB represents the end, but SVB represents the beginning and the flourishing of human relationship. Without  understanding of public speech we mistake NVB for SVB. 

When we struggle to understand each other, we have NVB, but when we understand each other, we have SVB. In SVB there is complete absence of any kind of struggle. This isn’t hypothetical, but this is factual. Our individual differences don’t matter in SVB and consequently don’t lead to NVB. To the contrary, in SVB our individual differences are affirmed and respected. In SVB we are able to recognize ourselves in each other, but in NVB there is no reciprocity. In SVB our shared meaning derives from our use of words which don’t and can’t belong to anyone individually. 

What would be the use of public speech if speakers spoke, but listeners couldn’t understand what they said, if writers wrote, but readers couldn’t understand their writings or didn’t speak their language? When we would call meaningless speech NVB, when would call unintelligible writing NVB, we would derive a new sense of purpose in our speech and our writings, which was  missing. What is said or written will be understood if it is said or written with the clear intent that it must be understood. 

This writing, this public, overt speech, was meant to be read and understood. However, when this writer was writing, there was no one to take note of it. He was alone and he was merely recording his private, covert speech. There was no one to talk with. He was quiet by himself in his room. There wasn’t anyone in particular to write to and no one in the foreseeable future was going to read it. Yet, he he anticipated that his writings would be read, so he continued to talk with himself and he wrote down the thoughts of his covert self-talk.

As he thought about these words, he realized that they could be a function of both public and private speech. Furthermore, he understood that these words might also have an effect on the reader’s covert and overt speech. This writer’s private speech connects to the reader’s private speech, because his public speech is such that this becomes possible. Thus, covert speech can affect overt speech.

The purpose of this experiment is to lay the proper foundation for SVB public speech. Currently, we are used to the kind of public speech from which our private speech is excluded. Of course, our covert speech is always there during our overt speech. Tt will strengthen our public speech if it is allowed to be part of it and if it matches it. If our private speech is continuously excluded from our public speech, if our public speech misrepresents, ignores, violates and betrays our private speech, then private speech will take our attention away from public speech. This is what is happening. We cannot help but dissociate from our public speech due to our incessant, neglected self-talk. If this is not properly addressed, attention goes to private speech even when we are involved in public speech. Thoughts and feelings that are involved in such predictably negative private speech, will distract and disconnect us from what is said or written.

  

Moreover, there will always be miscommunication when there is a mismatch between our public and our private speech. The reader will be thinking about different matters than those that are written and the listener will be thinking about different things than what is said. This writing sheds light on what we have accepted as normal, but which, because it concerns our communication failure, always comes back to haunt us. Communication failures and the resultant problems don’t go away by pretending that they don’t exist. 

Our private speech will keep reminding us of the public speech which didn’t happen, which couldn’t happen or never happened enough. Our private speech, how we talk with ourselves, is a function of how others have talked with us and, consequently, much of our self-talk is likely to drive us nuts. Covert speech is extremely self-defeating if we are trying to tell ourselves that private and public speech don’t mix.  

  

Just as there is NVB in most of our overt speech, there is also a lot of NVB in most of our covert speech. Only SVB in our overt speech can alter our covert NVB repertoire. We need to talk about what we really think and feel and without that we neither understand ourselves nor each other. Obviously, the latter depends on the former, but our outward-oriented emphasis on the latter, on others, prevents us from attending to the former, to ourselves.