May 7, 2016

May 7, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

While many people bemoan the polarization that is currently going on the United States as well as in many other Western countries, I think something really positive is happening. Interestingly, the issue of political correctness repeatedly comes up. People, left and right, attempt to stop each other from saying things they don’t want to hear. To be able to say things that others don’t want to hear is to acknowledge the existence of what I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). If I don’t like what you say, I don’t like what I hear and you sound terrible to me. Under such circumstances, I am not listening to you, because my attention goes to what you say and not to how you say it. My ability to pay attention to how you say things is narrowed down by what you say. You may say what you say in the most polite and kind way, but I will still be offended or threatened by it. We are learning to acknowledge the fact that what is Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) to one person is NVB to another. There is no other way to learn about NVB, to recognize it, to discriminate it, than to sit with the simple fact that we, the listeners, don’t like to hear what the other person is saying. We would like him or her to shut up and our attempt, as speakers, to make him or her do that causes us to engage in NVB with him or her. In other words, we, that is, the speaker and the listener, or rather, the speaker and the listener who becomes the speaker, either engage in NVB or in SVB together. We, also pertains to the speaker-as-own-listener. Thus, the speaker-as-own-listener either engages in SVB or in NVB with him or herself. The ‘information-processing model’ assumes a speaker who sends and a listener who receives, but this model always separates the speaker and the listener and makes us completely overlook the speaker-as-own-listener, that is, the conscious speaker. During SVB, the speaker listens to him or herself while he or she speaks, but during NVB, the speaker doesn’t hear him or herself and is focused on coercing the listener to listen to him or to her. In NVB, the superior speaker demands the attention of the inferior listener.