December 26, 2013

December 26, 2013

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) speakers listen to themselves while they speak. In SVB writers read what they write, while they are writing.  The ability to self-listen, to self-read, to be conscious of what one says or writes, is taught by the public speech of caring others.  Although parents and teachers have cared for children, they were themselves never taught about SVB and so they taught that listening to others is different from listening to oneself. Instead of teaching that listening to others is the same as listening to oneself, they taught that listing to others requires that we don’t listen to ourselves. Thus,we weren’t taught to have SVB.

The writer, who reads what he or she writes, while he or she is writing it, may be reading in a similar fashion as if he or she is reading the writing of someone else.  The separation between self and other is the same as the separation between the speaker and the listener, between the writer and the reader. In SVB, however, there is no separation because of self-listening. The same person who does the speaking does the listening. The same person who does the writing does the reading. Also the duality between words and what words refer to dissolves during SVB, because the listener is always understood to be covertly a speaker and the reader is also, of course, always simultaneously, albeit privately, understood to be a writer.

We engage in Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) because our emphasis on listening to others prevents us from listening to ourselves. Listening to ourselves, however, doesn’t and can’t prevent us from listening to others. Those who listen to themselves while they speak achieve SVB . They instantly recognize NVB  with 100% inter rater reliability. Only those who have attained SVB are able to recognize those who have NVB, but those who have NVB can’t recognize those who have SVB.  Thus, those who have NVB, who make up 95% of all communicators, blame those with SVB, a minority of 5% on who they depend, that there is something wrong with them. Because SVB communicators are far outnumbered everywhere, they keep begging to be accepted. Their nagging demands are incapable of turning NVB into SVB. Most likely it again turns their own SVB into NVB.  Many people may have been onto this, but they weren’t able to carry on,  because the distinction between SVB and NVB, that would have made that possible for them to persist, was still missing. 

Because NVB repeatedly happens, everywhere, every day, our ears are conditioned not to listen to ourselves, but to others. Thus, in NVB people remain outward-oriented. It is not that they can’t listen to themselves, but that they will not do so as long as their environment or situation is not conducive to SVB.  We will not be listening to ourselves if others don’t reinforce it.  If the costs are bigger than the gains, we won’t do it. In NVB speakers may be able to make listeners listen to them, but they don’t realize they don’t listen to themselves. Although they are being listened to, this never results into their self-listening. 

In NVB writing, words on a page appear to be separate from the reader, who will not consider him or herself as the writer, because the text was written by someone else. Written words have meaning because they are covertly spoken by the reader. Words are only SVB overt expressions of the writer, however, to the extent that they connect with the covert speech repertoire of the reader. Because the reader, in his or her imagination, is capable of interacting with the text, the reader co-writes and co-creates what is written. If this, for whatever reason, is not possible, not encouraged, or not considered, reading will increasingly alienate the reader from his or her participation in public speech as well as from learning. 

In one way or another, most communicators tend to dominate the conversation, because they want their needs to be met. Speakers may attract attention with their arguments or their refusal to talk. Although writers also of course have their need to be heard, their verbal trickery often distracts them as well as their readers from this burdensome need. We don’t know about our need for self-listening and we don’t talk or write about it. This need, at best indirectly referred to, wasn’t met because it couldn’t be met in NVB.  No matter how much reading, writing, speaking or listening we did, our need for self-listening can only be satisfied when we speak or write in SVB. If we wish to have SVB, we must call a spade a spade and let those with NVB know that they don’t communicate. Even when we catch ourselves getting carried away by NVB, we must let ourselves know.   Only when our common lack of self-listening has been accurately described and accepted will we be able to let go of our tendency to control the conversation.  This is accomplished by more and not by less speaking. Nothing can be achieved by those who retreat from the process of human interaction. Religious rituals, meditation and all sorts of artistic expressions can’t bring us to SVB.  The belief that this would be possible has only perpetuated NVB. Because they didn’t know about it, saints, seers or gurus were unable to establish and maintain SVB.  No matter how much love and peace we have experienced, as long as our private speech is not properly expressed in public speech, it will remain its biggest impediment.