June 25, 2014

June 25, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

A few papers were read about the wonderful possibilities of creating a better world with behaviorism. That is what this author is into. However, attention for contingencies that maintain behavior outside of the skin, although necessary, is not feasible and has historically not been possible. Such attention always coincides with higher levels of cooperation, wellbeing, community and togetherness. For as long as that is not a reality, it is both safer and more effective to focus on what happens beneath the skin. That is this author’s focus, which has led to his success.

The behaviorist papers about creating a better society were written thirty six years ago and nothing has changed for the better. Nothing has changed regarding the public’s view of the causation of human behavior. We still believe and we treat each other and ourselves as if we cause our own behavior. This pre-scientific notion is extremely tenacious and harmful. 

Yesterday, this author heard on the radio a report about the Amish community in which there is a measles epidemic. The Amish, until recently, refused vaccinations. Because of how their community has been affected, they are now finally more often willing to take the vaccinations. 

This is one of many examples of the tediously slow pace of ‘progress.’ It becomes increasingly more evident that human beings are destroying their environment, yet, we are not even recognizing that we are each other’s environment. This author is convinced that we don’t care about our environment, because we don’t realize that we are each other’s environment. Unless we realize, during spoken communication, that we are each other’s environment, we are unable of creating and maintaining healthy relationships. Without the skills to have positive, supportive and peaceful relationships, we are on the path of destroying our world. This author is dedicated to teaching where teaching is possible, learning where learning is possible, communicating where communication is possible. 

Nowhere does it become more clear that we don’t cause our own behavior, that we can’t cause our own behavior, that we have never caused our own behavior, but, that we cause each other’s behavior, than in our spoken communication. I ask you: how much sense would it make to speak English to a person who only speaks Russian? It wouldn’t. Either the Russian must learn English or the English must learn Russian, but in either case, a speaker only makes sense as mediated by a listener. If the listener doesn’t matter, as in the case of NVB, the speaker speaks a language which is and remains foreign to the listener. The listener can, of course, be forced, non-verbally and verbally, into all sorts of things, but the speaker and listener remain strangers, because they don’t speak the same language. If, however, the speaker listens to himself while he or she speaks, the listener is going to be able to learn the language of the speaker. 

The listener, who listens to a speaker, who doesn’t listen to him or herself while he or she speaks, cannot really learn the speaker’s language and can at best pretend to have learned the speaker’s language. No matter how good the listener may get at pretending that he can understand the speaker, the listener is enabling the oppressive speaker, but is not really understanding him or her. It is never the fault of the listener that he or she doesn’t understand the speaker, because the listener, who is functionally the child of the speaker, was conditioned by the circumstances that were created by the speaker. 

If the speaker didn’t listen to him or herself, and, non-verbally forced the listener to listen to him or her, without making sense verbally, then the listener is bound to be listening and responding to the speaker non-verbally. This natural response is because the listener always mediates the speaker. 

If the speaker speaks in a forceful way, then the listener/child will unknowingly adapt to this. He or she will accept as normal whatever he or she was born and raised in. Even when he or she finds out that other people speak in a different way, he or she will not learn this language, as long as he or she can get by or get away with his or her acquired native Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).