January 24, 2015

January 24, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

This is a third and final writing about the discussion which went on in the Dutch parliament about the radicalization of muslims in Holland and how to prevent violence attacks such as the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris. The increased call for curbing the influence of Islam is not isolated to Holland, but it happens across Europe. It took a long time for the free western verbal community to rise up against this globally-competing muslim verbal community. The argument that one represents modernity and the other, in the eye of the former, barbarism, doesn’t and can’t begin to address how our verbal behavior is maintained by our environments. If we want to change our verbal behavior, we must change the contingency that maintains it. This requires the exploration of the SVB/NVB distinction. 

Another speaker started out by appealing to SVB by saying “I am certain that the whole Dutch parliament is against extremism”, but he then followed with the NVB accusation that the anti-muslim politician was “feeding hate and extremism.” Moreover, he strongly warned that “continuing to speak out against the one million muslims in Holland would be very dangerous.” His plea for another analysis than the one from the anti-muslim politician was again one in favor of SVB. This writer agrees that polarization equals NVB and will only make things worse, but unless the distinction between SVB and NVB is made clear, we are surely going to end up there. What is missing from the discussion of “what is really dangerous” is the objective understanding about how human interaction, that is SVB, really works. Vague allusions about SVB are made, but scientific understanding is still completely lacking. 

The only female politician in this debate expressed SVB understanding for the fact that the anti-muslim politician “must be very afraid and upset”, but wondered if his “spreading of fear was not a victory for the terrorists.” Here again we see the switch, from one moment to the next, from SVB to NVB. The anti-muslim politician redirected the discussion, because he didn’t want it to be about his personal fear, he wanted to discuss the fear that is felt by the many people he represents. He was trying to be more objective about fear and consequently he moved into SVB. In effect he was trying to discuss the actual conditions which create and maintain fear. By appealing to the fact that he must be feeling very angry and fearful, since he is constantly threatened to be killed, another NVB attempt was made to make it into a personal matter. Also, the refusal by most Dutch politicians to collaborate with him was raised as a personal issue, because supposedly it was caused by him. The anti-muslim politician refused to make it into something personal, because he wanted to do something about it. His reasoning for changing behavior of others was SVB. His ability to step away from himself, allowed for a calm description of the independent variables pertaining to the killings of thousands, by people who can be characterized by a striking similarity in their verbal behavior. In answer to the SVB-facts by the anti-muslim speaker, the female speaker then increased her NVB by accusing him of “creating fear and helping the terrorists”, but the SVB anti-muslim speaker refused to respond.

At the end of the debate, in which the Paris killings and the problems with muslim radicalization in Holland were discussed, one of the speakers asked what practical steps can be taken to increase security? This was a SVB request. The anti-muslim speaker, however, answered in a NVB manner as he expressed his frustration that the law he had proposed ten years ago, to prevent jihadist from re-entering into Holland, had not been discussed, let alone passed. What is clearly visible here is a pattern which was repeated over and over again: as on person produced SVB, the other increased his or her NVB, but when that person then produced NVB, the other person increased his or her SVB again. Of course, none of this requires any reference to some inner agent. None of these politicians speak the way they do, because inside of them there is a self which is directing and controlling their verbal behavior. How they speak is mostly rule-governed, that is, they adhere to common rules about how they as party-members are expected to speak in the Dutch parliament. Their verbal behavior is also contingency-governed, that is, it is affected antecedently and postcedently by environmental stimuli, which change as a consequence of the dynamics of the debate.


Because of the content of the debate it is apparent that various politicians felt personally upset about the uncommon and confrontational verbal behavior of the anti-muslim politician. They spoke about being afraid, angry and appalled, by the killings, but when confronted by the anti-muslim speaker with their lack of decisiveness, they accused him of being like the terrorists. However, his behavior is not much under control of the other politicians, but is determined his party who wants him to address this issue. 

     

Let’s summarize some pertinent aspects of SVB and NVB. As the debate illustrated, NVB continues and is likely to increase. There are reasons why NVB occurs. When what is said becomes more important than how we say it, when verbal expressions are incongruent with and disconnect us from our nonverbal behavior, we will have NVB. When we want others to listen to us, but when we are not listening to ourselves, we have NVB. When our environment, which consists of other speakers, is aversively affecting us and we are constantly trying to change how others talk, we are having NVB. More precisely, we will elicit NVB responses, because the sound of our voice functions as an aversive stimulus to our listener. We may start out with SVB, but we will revert to NVB at the drop of a hat. The rapid ongoing changes from SVB to NVB and from NVB to SVB, always involve fluctuating environmental variables, which must be controlled if we want to continue our  SVB. Such control is made possible and preceded by our familiarity with and understanding of the SVB/NVB distinction. This distinction brings us to the essence of human interaction. 

We need SVB to be able to talk about NVB. Without SVB, we will talk in a NVB-way about NVB and we will be unable to describe NVB correctly. Our inability of describing what is happening will increase our NVB to higher and higher levels. Absence of SVB is the absence of relationship. Presence of NVB is the absence of SVB. The either-or-effect of our way of communicating is like electricity; speakers either turn the listener on or off. “Another way of saying this is that SVB allows mediators to talk about how they experience the verbalizer. SVB is the mediator’s perspective of the verbalizer. Unless the listener likes, recognizes, understands what the speaker says, interaction is not happening. NVB is not communication.