May 8, 2016

May 8, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Hierarchical communication or what I call Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) has been going on for a long time. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), by contrast, the interaction of equity, is a still a novel event. The SVB/NVB distinction is not addressed by anyone, but me. This doesn’t mean, of course, that SVB or NVB wasn’t going on before it was called that way. It does mean, however, that we didn’t have a name for it. Mankind is in the process of discovering that SVB and NVB are natural, that is, real phenomena, which have been occurring in every language. Thus, every language consists of two languages; there is the Chinese version of SVB and there is the Chinese version of NVB. Likewise, there is the Christian version of SVB and the Christian version of NVB. Similarly, there is a Republican and a Democrat version of SVB and NVB. As coerciveness of NVB got a lot of things done, we have adhered to it to this very day. Most of our behavior is controlled by punitive contingencies rather than by positively reinforcing contingencies. However, the repertoires which have been created by these forceful contingencies, which gave rise to NVB, are very limited and are no longer capable of meeting the challenges faced by modern man. Nowhere is the limitation of our behavioral repertoire more apparent than in our interactions. In our past, NVB made SVB possible, but this is no longer the case. Hierarchical interactions have led to security and survival, but this is no longer true, at least, this is not the case in our communications. Due to our technology our communication has evolved in such a way that hierarchical, uni-directional communication has become a thing of the past. We are falling psychologically behind on non-hierarchical, multi-directional communication, made available to us by technology. We get carried away by our technology, because we have not yet learned how to use it to our advantage. Although technology paves the way for SVB, it isn’t happening, because we tend to believe that talking is an outdated behavior. It is not talking which is outdated, but it is NVB which is on its deathbed!!!