April 30, 2014

April 30, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Also in today’s entry this writer continues his response to the wonderful paper written by Ruiz en Roche in 2007, in which they, among other things, explain why survival is the ultimate criterion to assess the worth of a culture. Yet, conflict between survival and traditional cultural values prevents people from adopting this explanation. Whether people believe it or not, the earth is round and not the center of the universe. Likewise, whether we believe it or not, behaviors are selected for by adaptation to the environment, because we somehow try to survive. 

Survival is also the most important criterion by which we should evaluate Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). It is pragmatic to consider SVB and NVB as two different cultures. In this way, we begin to recognize and understand that what is good for SVB isn’t good for NVB and visa versa. Moreover, the public conflict between different cultures becomes visible in the light of the how we deal with different cultures privately. In this sense, we express in our interactions that we have survived because we have always belonged to more than just one culture. Our ability to flexibly shift between cultures is why we have survived, but our inability to do so has led to and is going to lead to our demise.

As we didn’t have a behaviorist/evolutionary/environmental account, we have only been able to think about SVB and NVB culture in terms of belonging to one culture or the other. The fact is, however, that we belong to both. We need to belong to both and we can’t afford to belong to only just one or the other. The issue of dominant versus minority culture sheds light on what is going on: NVB is the dominant culture and SVB is the minority culture. 

Depending on the circumstances a person grows up in, he or she has lived alternatively in a SVB and NVB culture. Some people grow up with a lot of SVB culture, others with very little. If one grew up in a family in which NVB was more represented, then SVB communicators will be considered out-group and NVB communicators will be considered the in-group. To the extent that one moves away from one’s original dominant culture, one will experience conflict with one’s own, dominant culture. This author, who grew up in a family in which there was, in spite of the many things that were wrong, more SVB than in most other families, discovered SVB because the stage was set early on by the way in which he grew up. However, it didn’t lead to better relations with his family members, to the contrary, it made him decide to sever all ties with his family. This decision came after years and years of struggle for acceptance. It is only now that this author can understand that he has left his old culture and that his immigration to the United States has broken a pattern, which had been kept into place by cultural contingencies. 

Survival, as a criterion by which a culture is to be evaluated, is objected to, because people imagine and want to continue to believe that they cause their own behavior. Regardless of what culture one belongs to, this grandiose fantasy can only be maintained by a NVB culture and will be extinguished by a SVB culture. Those who insist on what is right are as resistant to SVB as to survival, as a way of explaining what they do and why they do it. Thus, SVB is at odds with every culture, because it allows all cultures to converge in a new way of communicating which transcends our hang-ups with culture. SVB cannot be eradicated because innate behaviors make us do whatever it takes to be safe. No matter how much NVB we have, our need for SVB is there, because it is our natural inclination. No matter how forceful our cultural conditioning has been, it wears off while we survive.

The claim that science can and should contribute to the assessment of cultural matters relies on SVB to provide us with evidence. Factual bases of cultural standards are not justified by NVB. In NVB there is no need for justification, because slave drivers will hit slaves into submission whenever they want. Oppressors think they were destined to coerce. The powerful continue to force and humiliate the powerless, because they think they are better than them. In NVB one's place in the social hierarchy, is constantly reiterated.

NVB is not communication. The slave only keeps working for the slave owner to save his life. Only to stay alive do the oppressed adhere to the rules of the oppressor. Only to imagine a better, happier life, do the powerless rely on their belief in a higher power. NVB might as well be called the language of co-dependence, in which the enabler enables the enabled and in which the enabled continuously demand to be enabled. Because we have not dealt with the cultural differences between SVB and NVB, we use coercion as as our main way of behavioral control. Along with our forceful way of communicating, NVB continues our denial of the science of human behavior, which teaches that our behavior was, is and will continue to be maintained by environmental variables. 

 

The critics of Skinner, who have argued that his naturalistic ethics cannot deliver what it promises, are totally wrong. They are still side-tracked by their metaphysical matters, because they don’t fully grasp the need to functionally define our value-laden concepts. It is not a matter of agreeing with Skinner that there is no distinction between facts and values or that there should be such a distinction. In SVB there is no distinction, but in NVB there is this distinction. In SVB this distinction doesn’t arise, but in NVB it creates a smoke screen, which hides the fact that people are reinforced for what is working only for them, while they use and abuse others as a means to their end. Critics of Skinner always do so to protect their own interests. And, behaviorists who disagree with Skinner’s formulation of‘good', are more inclined to NVB than to SVB. Such behaviorists  almost reflexively come up with fabricated conflict situations, which supposedly provide the proof of whether a particular formulation is helpful in such a situation or not and can tell us what we ought to do. Again, the issue of what we presumably ought to do arises only in NVB, but it doesn’t even arise in SVB. In SVB, we tell ourselves what to do, but in NVB others will continue to tell us what to do.

Although we tell ourselves what we ought to do during SVB, this was made possible because others allowed us to have SVB. We were taught SVB in a very different way than we were taught NVB. While learning the former, we felt safe, accepted and supported, but while learning the latter, we were forced, rejected and punished. What people see as their personal values were never separate from environmental cultural facts, due to which these personal values were acquired in the first place. Thus, Skinner’s functional analysis of values in terms of reinforcers is rejected by those who mainly have NVB. Those who are involved in SVB, however, know it is the inclusion of other cultures which makes SVB possible. Therefore, those who know how to have SVB would never reject Skinner’s view of cultural relativism.

Adherence to contextualism is a consequence of how we talk about our private events. SVB involves the inclusion and expression of our private, covert speech in public, overt speech. NVB is based on the  exclusion of our private speech from our public speech. In NVB, the idea of personal values, which set the stage for contextualism, is a big deal, but in SVB it isn’t. Over-emphasis on what is presumably personal or private occurs when it is not accurately represented in how we talk. It should come as no surprise that in NVB people talk a great deal about personal values, that is, about themselves (some psychologists have termed this image-management), but in SVB people talk mainly about each other. In other words, people are free from their obsession with themselves in SVB. A range of personal valued ends emerge from the examples that are given by Hayes: "to experience the harmony of events; to experience the connection among events; to produce a consistency of beliefs; to understand and make sense of the world; to feel personally satisfied; to manipulate and control phenomena; to survive as a species, individual or culture; to look intelligent; to speak nonsense; to get put into the mental hospital." The first values seem to describe typical SVB events, but towards the end of the list we read more and more examples of NVB. This author thinks Hayes would be happier if he stopped trying so hard to carve out and defend his niche in behaviorism. This author suggests for him to experience the great difference between SVB and NVB.

The epistemological gulf which is believed to exist between the contextualists and the non-contextualists is just another example of NVB. The gulf only exists for those who talk in a NVB manner, or rather, for those who can’t talk in any other way than in their own way. Unless they are instructed by someone who is capable of pointing out the difference between NVB and SVB, they will not even be able to respond to the contingencies of reinforcement that make SVB possible!

Matters can only be communicated meaningfully in SVB, but NVB keeps setting us apart. What we say is not as important as we think it is, because how we say it always provides the context. The context of what we say is perceived either as friendly or adversarial. When after tiring discussions, in which we couldn’t go anywhere, the suggestion is made that we should adopt the contextual view, we will be able to understand that we are dismissing the simple fact that we are not communicating. NVB is meaningless talk which prevents action. Only behaviorists who adopt the SVB/NVB distinction understand that in NVB, we can talk until we are blue and still not get anywhere. 

It is not the acceptance of the mentalist psychological community that behaviorists should be after, but rather whether behaviorism is going to be able to demonstrate that there actually is such a thing as real interaction. The claim of immunity to moral responsibility by contextualists is based on the pretension of interaction, which perpetuates meaningless discussions in the behavior-analytic community. Just because contextualists are going against radical behaviorism is not guaranteeing openness or enlightenment. As long as the distinction between SVB and NVB remains unaddressed, we can only expect more beating around the verbal bush in the name of ethics. The perpetuation all our so-called controversies is always a function of Machiavellian valued ends, which, of course, ideally remain hidden by the outward presentations of our morally upstanding citizenship. 

It is often stated that the pragmatic philosophy by Machiavelli can be used for good as well as for evil, but this author doesn’t think that it has led to any good. It certainly has redefined good and this is exactly what we should pay attention to. Good, as defined by Machiavelli, means to obtain one’s personal, private goals by any means necessary. This reference to private covert speech that serves as a discriminative stimulus for public verbal reports, naturally involves complete disregard for public accountability. It should be noted that Machiavellians are not only disinterested in bridging the schism, which they themselves keep orchestrating, butthey are also incapable of bridging the gap between them and the community, which is getting wider and wider. They miss the skill to do that. As they set the standard for how people communicate, they maintain and elicit NVB. Even in our so-called open discussions in which we attempt to find ways to improve the lives of others, we adhere mainly to NVB. In NVB there is always a predetermined agenda which prevents dialogue.