At de Lange wrote in LO12300:
"What you have said above reminds me of our black peoples. White people
find them very noisy. Why do they speak so loud? It is a custom among the
black peoples! By speaking loudly a person indicates to whoever can hear
him that he is not contriving anything bad. In other words, the loud
speaking is a sign of goodwill. It is exactly the opposite what you have
described, namely silent speaking is a sign of goodwill!"
If the intention is to communicate goodwill, but the received message is
threatening, then the communication process has broken down. What are the
things that happen here?
I'd like to respond on various topics raised by At's comment from my
experience, namely volume, noise, effective communicaiton and stance:
1. volume - appropriate volume to listener/speaker: If the listener deems
the volume to be inappropriate (too soft), it is usually the habitual
voice use of the speaker that gets in the way of the communication
process.
A common problem to do with volume that I come across is the speaker
thinking they speak louder than they do, due to focusing on bone-conducted
resonance and inefficient voice production, rather than the whole-body
feeling of connected voice-production that serves the communication
process. This is especially common in 'western' societies, where
over-population and learned behaviours perceived to be culturally
favourable (e.g. 'stand up straight and pull your tummy in) get in the way
of natural voice production, so bringing compensatory mechanisms into
play, which over time, we perceive to be primary mechanisms.
2. noise - a subjective term - but usually related to cultural norms.
If the listener deems the volume to be noisy (for noisy, read
inappropriate, or too loud), it is usually a cultural habituation they are
relating to.
EITHER this, OR the listener may be intuitively tuning into the speaker
using throat tension to project their voice. If the speaker does so, they
are not using their body effectively - in the long term, they could be
causing themselves damage. This, if you want to take it to its logical
conclusion, leads to damage of the voice - our main and most favroured
instrument of communication, powered by our breath and life-force - and is
hence a misuse of that life-force. I believe we precieve this as listeners
without understanding what it is we are perceiving. We tune into the fact
that we are hearing 'noise' where there is a potential for music to be
heard. We don't know why it is happening, but are generally disappointed
that it is.
3. effective communication:
The point is - does the volume serve the message? Are both parties
communicating?
I can think of many examples of effective cross-cultural communication,
where both parties have accepted the other party fully, (or at least, as
fully as possible), yet each have maintained their cultural identity.
"Also suppose that the soul has a collective dimension."
Yes - but behind this statement, which you mention in the context of
global civilization (I am not clear what you intend to convey by this term
- many behaviours one culture considers civilised, another does not) I am
not clear whether you believe that souls are essentially the same - or
essentially different.
I'd like to offer up my thoughts on universal communication, which I think
is a better term tha global civilisation and get your views on them ...
I think our potential as human beings is realised fully when we fulfil our
potential in whatever we are doing, or choose to do, and make manifest the
power of the divine in us - let the light of our souls shine through what
we do with our bodies.
This happens in communication, in my experience, when a communicator
brings their thoughts, words and deeds together in an integrated act that
serves their message.
This act of effective communication also depends on a communication
process occurring between speaker and listener - sender and receiver. It
depends on the process occurring freely and spontaneously. It demands that
both parties be aware of the process and if it breaks down, take the
necessary steps to re-initiate it. The lack of attention to the
communication process as separate and distinct from the message is, I
believe, where many negotiations - on all levels - break down.
So - the communicator communicates in an integrated way, and the process
of communication occurs uninhibitedly. But I don't belive this is enough
for effective communication to occur.
Effective communication I believe is totally dependent on something else:
4. Rhetorical stance.
Effective communication comes from the soul - for that is where the
foundations of stance* lie. (For a definition of rhetorical stance, see
below)
Communicators that manage to integrate their thoughts, words, and deeds
can use that process to integrate their mind, body and spirit.
"For the general public English doesn't mean metaphor but concrete
reality."
In my expereince, metaphor and reality can merge - their meeting ground is
stance*.
If a person's stance* is founded on universal principles, absolute
principles that we all adhere to, or strive to, as human beings, across
creeds, colours, races and beliefs - then we are communicating. There is a
hope for global culture and communication. The answer does not lie in
cultural differences, but in focusing on the universal absolutes in
different cultures and building on them.
The Zulus seem to me from your descriptions to be similar to the Nubians -
a proud and noble race, one I very much respect, but sadly know little
about.
All this leads up to a final statement that I believe if one does
acknowledge the soul of the organisation as a collective expression of its
individual souls, and see this as a suitable foundation for building a
learning organisation ( or otherwise effective one ), one can only be as
effective in helping nurture the organisation's soul as one is prepared to
infuse that organisation with the energy that emanates from our own soul
for the time we are working within it.
We are a living metaphor for our beliefs. The more universal our stance*,
the more effective I believe we can be in communicating and influencing
others to bring about long-term lasting positive changes.
* rhetorical stance (definition):
Rhetorical stance is the relationship between an individuals principles
and their behaviour. The effectiveness of communication can be linked
directly to a communicators stance. It is stance that Bascom (1870)
refers to in his Philosophy of Rhetoric as a prerequisite for effective
communication, or eloquence:
"True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. ... Words and
phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot encompass it. It
must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected
passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to
it; they cannot reach it. ... The graces taught in the schools, the costly
ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when
their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their
country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their
power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even
genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher
qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent; then self-devotion is eloquent.
The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high
purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue,
beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man
onward, right onward toward his object, - this, this is eloquence; or
rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence; it is
action, noble, sublime, godlike action."
Leon Conrad
The Conrad Voice Consultancy
Website: http://www.actual.co.uk/conrad
--Leon Conrad <100755.1675@CompuServe.COM>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>