Avoiding Misunderstanding


A lot of people complain that others extend the point being made to far more than what was intended. Or to apply in contexts well beyond the intended scope. Note that I am talking of misunderstanding of the genuine kind here, not the deliberate one practiced by politicians, journalists and those with an agenda.

Some of it is unavoidable because the listener brings their perspective to the table. At other times, the history and track record of the speaker contributes to the problem. So is there no way out? Or can people put out explicit statements of what they don’t mean, call out the point beyond which they don’t want their argument to be extended? Yes, this is hard work, but surely it is worth doing if the topic is important enough, right? After all, it isn’t fair to blame others for not seeing your point when you don’t put the effort to see why they don’t see your point or the …

OK, so let’s see how things played out when people have tried this approach of anticipating and pre-empting misunderstanding.

Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, Silent Spring, was highly controversial. Was the author criticizing all tech and its adverse impact on the environment? Or was she presenting a more nuanced take on the topic? Carson herself anticipated this criticism and tried to forestall it with this passage at the beginning of the book:
“It is not my contention that chemical pesticides must never be used. I do contend that we have put poisonous and biologically potent chemicals indiscriminately into the hands of persons largely or wholly ignorant of their potential for harm.”
Few noticed these lines. And so the book became controversial anyway!

So is this approach doomed then? Let’s take another instance, this time the lines Richard Dawkins wrote in Selfish Gene. Anticipating that many would (to use the football phrase) attack the player, not the ball:
“I know I am in danger of being misunderstood by those people, all too numerous, who cannot distinguish a statement of belief in what is the case from an advocacy of what ought to be the case.”
In Dawkins’ case, people did notice the line. While many disagreed with the theme of the book and argued against it on merits, few went around saying that Dawkins was advocating a dog-eat-dog world as the world we should aspire for.

So I guess there’s hope after all. Just that there’s no fool proof method to avoid genuine misunderstandings.

Comments

  1. Ramiah KumarMay 10, 2019 at 8:46 AM

    The subject of this blog has been something I have pondered for decades.

    It is still my belief that communication is among the toughest challenges of life. As the blog clearly states, "Some of it is unavoidable because the listener brings their perspective to the table", that is a major issue. That is Problem 1. 'Listening intrinsically' is almost a Herculian task, because most of us, by habit, hear while mind goes on filtering out parts of what is said and adding what one wants to be heard, entirely because, "That is what I want!" And, some people do introspect and come to a high level of objective view; many believe they are pretty objective while others particularly those who claim objectivity are bogus; the rest don't have any idea or interest in objectivity. No the major part of communication problem, it appears to me, lies is "paradigm penetrability"! Each one has a rigid paradigm, like as if the shell is made of some un-machinable iron alloy. :-)

    Problem 2 is that many of us are capable of using words that convey ambiguously or without clarity. When confronted, we respond with, "I said if very clearly. Ask anybody!" In any case giving right words to thought is a great art and science. Not easy at all.

    Problem 3: There is an inherent difficulty is most ideas and domains. If we leave aside the Western material sciences, I am yet find any method of even proposing a bench mark to evaluate something on truth, values, meaning, utility combined. Who can say, "This photo or painting deserves the first prize while another only second and yet another just third. Are rejected ones by the prize committee truly lacing in merit? Could it be that the judges lack merit to evaluate? This kind of scenario permeates through all domains.

    I sometimes feel if any argument is worth a dime, because any argument can be drowned in opinion-driven words.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student of the Year

Image
As a toddler, my daughter loved Alia Bhatt’s songs, esp. the ones from Student of the Year . (That movie did have many good songs and well-choreographed dances). Fast forward to present day, when she is 12 yo. She rarely watches Hindi movies now, but one of the few ones she likes of late, Raja aur Rani ki Prem Kahani has, yes, Alia Bhatt.   If I had any hopes that there was anything to be read in the name of her toddler-time favorite ( Student of the Year ), they have been dashed. Our conversations come exam time are perfectly captured by this photo and its caption: In fact, the pic below captures how she and I look at her answer sheets – me intently, she with an expression of “It’s over, so why are you even looking at it?”   Of late, we pull her leg and tell her that she isn’t showing any signs of academic prowess, she’d better find a rich guy to marry. Some time later, she showed us this meme on the Internet: “Me No Study, Me No Care Me Go Marry Millionaire If He Die
Read more

The Retort of the "Luxury Person"

Image
Coming up with biting and witty retorts. It’s something we dream of, but rarely manage to pull off. Worse, the more we stew over the offending remark, the more likely we are to come up with that dream retort, as Calvin ruefully points out: During our last holiday at the Taj Resort, seeing my wife carrying towels to our poolside chairs, one of the kids there mistook her for a member of the staff and asked for a towel. When my wife narrated this to us, I did not imagine that my 8 yo daughter would come up with her own retort. But a day later, my daughter recapped the incident, an incident that didn’t even involve her in the first place , and said, “You know what I’d have told that kid who asked for the towel?”. And without waiting for an answer, she told us anyway: “I don’t work here. I too am a luxury person who is living at this resort. Go get your own towel.” We were highly amused by the phrase she had coined: “luxury person”. It certainly captures the kind of holid
Read more

Animal Senses #7: Touch and Remote Touch

Instinctively, we think touch is based on contact. Not entirely true, explains Ed Yong in Immense World – there’s a more important aspect than contact: “These incredible feats are possible through movement. If you rest a fingertip upon a surface, you can get only a limited idea of its features. But as soon you’re allowed to move, everything changes. Hardness becomes apparent with a press. Textures resolve at a stroke.” As you run your fingers over a surface, they hit the tiny peaks and troughs and set off vibrations in the mechanoreceptors at their tips.   At the tip of its snout, the star-nosed mole has many pairs of hairless appendages. It uses them to touch things around itself. Alive or dead? Food or ignore? It does these movements at an insane speed. In the time it takes to blink our eyes, the star-nosed mole can probe, identify and swallow its food. “Light may be the fastest thing in the universe, but light sensors have their limits, and the star-nosed mole’s sense of
Read more