October 1, 2015

October 1, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

This writing is my fifth response to “The Unit of Selection: What Do Reinforcers Reinforce?” by J.W. Donahoe, D.C. Palmer and J.E. Burgos (1997). The authors state that “‘‘Fear’’ is not reduced in general, but with respect to certain stimuli. However, in neither case are we arguing that knowledge of the environment is sufficient for understanding the behavior of interest. The organism, through the effects of its selection history on its nervous system, makes a necessary contribution to the environment–behavior relation.” These effects of the organism’s selection history are of utmost importance for understanding Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).

We all learn how to speak, read and write, as we grow up within a verbal community that conditions certain rates of SVB and NVB. We almost seem to forget that learning how to listen is equally dependent on the environment in which we grow up as learning how to speak. Moreover, without learning how to listen, there are quite predictably going to be enormous problems down the line with speaking, reading and writing. This is exactly why we haven’t been able to acknowledge the crucial distinction between SVB and NVB. In essence, our ignorance about the SVB/NVB distinction is because we are such bad listeners.

My repeated observation is that all of those who say that others are not listening to them are not listening to themselves. Although it may be true that others aren’t listening to them and are trying to dominate, oppress and exploit them with their way of talking, those who object against this are not listening themselves either. To state it differently, neither the oppressor nor the oppressed listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. Everyone wants the other person to listen to him or to her. In other words, NVB is characterized by other-listening, while SVB is characterized by the speaker-as-own-listener, by self-listening.

In NVB other-listening excludes self-listening, but in SVB self-listening includes other-listening. These totally different ways of listening cause most of our speaking, reading and writing to be of a NVB quality. In NVB speaking we want others to listen to us, but we are not listening to ourselves. In NVB writing, we want others to read us, but we don’t and we can’t read ourselves, as we don’t really write to ourselves in the first place. We will only learn from our own writing to the extent that we are listening to ourselves. The fact that only some people do most of the talking and that others are made to listen doesn’t mean that they are listening or that they are better listeners as they remain quiet. It has been my repeated finding that those who are generally more inclined to listen have more problems listening to themselves than those who do most of the talking. It makes sense if one considers the simple fact that because of their lack of talking there is nothing to listen to. We can only listen to ourselves while we speak and we must speak in order to be able to listen to ourselves. This is a very different understanding of listening than the false belief that we will only listen by not speaking.

The speaker capable of producing high rates of SVB has a very different behavioral history than the speaker who produces high rates of NVB. Also, the listener who is troubled by NVB has a very different behavioral history than the listener who is not troubled by NVB. To the extent he or she is troubled by NVB, he or she has had more SVB in his or her behavioral history than the listener who is not troubled by NVB. “The organism, through the effects of its selection history on its nervous system, makes a necessary contribution to the environment–behavior relation.” Thus, neither the NVB speaker nor the NVB listener is very troubled by the SVB speaker. The NVB speaker likes to have the SVB speaker around as he or she will not get in his or her way like a NVB speaker would. As long as people don’t recognize the SVB/NVB distinction, SVB speakers will lose their SVB in their attempts to interact with NVB speakers. SVB speakers can only maintain their SVB with SVB speakers and SVB listeners. Yet, it is possible that SVB speakers can maintain their SVB even with NVB listeners.

The SVB speaker is able to maintain his or her SVB with NVB listeners, as he or she positively affects the way in which the NVB listener listens. However, the NVB listener seldom listens long enough to the SVB speaker to become him or herself a SVB speaker. That is, he or she became a NVB speaker in the first place as he or she didn’t hear  enough SVB speech in his or her behavioral history to become a SVB speaker. If, however, the NVB speaker is exposed long enough to the SVB speaker, he or she will eventually become a SVB speaker as well. As stated, this conditioning process can only occur if listening is more addressed than speaking. The NVB speaker is so fixated on what he or she is saying that he or she ignores how he or she sounds while talking.

Any speaker can only become a SVB speaker if he or she listens to him or herself while he or she speaks. This means that the rate of listening behavior in the NVB speaker must be increased while simultaneously the rate of speaking behavior must be decreased. The person who is troubled by the NVB speaker has a SVB listening behavioral history, but not a SVB speaking history. Such a listening-inclined person must speak to be able to listen to him or herself while he or she speaks. However, increase in speaking behavior while simultaneously listening doesn’t occur near a NVB speaker. The person with SVB listening history must, through punishment, ‘learn’ to avoid the NVB speaker and discriminate the SVB speaker with whom he or she can learn to become a SVB speaker. It is my observation that in spite of repeated punishment, the SVB listener is still likely to continue to want to have SVB with the NVB speaker. The conditioning history which led to uneven rates of speaking and listening behavior is very common and consequently are we mostly engaged in NVB. In SVB speaking and listening behavior happen at the exact same rate. The equalization of listening and speaking behavior can be accomplished only when the speaker listens to him or herself while he speaks. We can only accurately perceive a speaker as having SVB or NVB when our history permits us to do so. This history is an accumulative process of the repeated interaction with SVB speakers.