<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">I am re-reading an article from the Stanford Social Innovation Review (<a href="https://ssir.org/issue/fall_2012">https://ssir.org/issue/fall_2012</a>) by Andrew Hoffman entitled "Climate Science as Culture War" that might inform this thread. The article is an interesting and still relevant dive into cultural processing and group cohesion dynamics. Hoffman points out the difference between a "scientific consensus" and a "social consensus", the latter possible only when sharing common ground on identity, worldview, and belief systems, reinforced by one's own reference group. Political affiliation is the strongest correlation with political positions, and Republicans see scientific consensus, for example, as giving in to "liberal" views.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Using climate change as an example of an issue enmeshed in the "culture wars" of a decade ago, Hoffman writes about "the great danger of a protracted partisan divide", worrying that "the debate will take the form of what I call a 'logic schism'--a breakdown in debate in which opposing sides are talking about completely different cultural issues." The theory of "cultural cognition" is important here: strengthening our bonds to other groups as a way of strengthening our definition of self and staying consistent in our beliefs. Also, there are a series of positive feedback loops going on, affirming our information when it comes from sources inside our "cultural community" that support our existing positions </div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 10:46 AM Steve Smith <<a href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com" target="_blank">sasmyth@swcp.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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glen -<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Wow! I don't think I've seen such an aggressive post from Steve before! Well done! Of course, being contrarian, I'll have to take Dave's side on this one. >8^D</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I'm glad you enjoyed it (my aggression and your own contrarian
response) <ambiguous grinny smiley face emoticon that might be
genuinely placating or really a sneer or a snarl> <br>
</p>
<p>For the TL;DR crowd: I hear you claiming that "it is Rhetoric
all the way down".<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>What do we mean by "narrative" and "persuasion" if *not* confidence building? </pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I do believe that "persuasion" and it's hoitier-toitier aunt,
"rhetoric" are about confidence building in the receiver,
including when the receiver is also (or only) talking to
themselves. Narrative, on the other hand needn't be weaponized
gibberish. It can be an offering. "Here, let me tell you what I
have seen/heard/smelled/tasted/touched" with an overlay of "and
implicit in that is *my* judgement/opinion/belief about what that
means to me" and "from what you know about me, from your past
experience with me and with others I might remind you of, it is
left to you to interpret what I've related to you here". <br>
</p>
<p>This forum is one of the *very few* places I offer narrative with
an attempt to "persuade" and I suspect if I reviewed the archives
I would join you in your own self-effacing self-description for
myself, as below: "I'm an idiot and failed utterly."<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>I thought that I tried to make this assertion in the "truth, reality, & narrative" post: <a href="http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/truth-reality-amp-narrative-tc7600012.html" target="_blank">http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/truth-reality-amp-narrative-tc7600012.html</a> But re-reading it shows that if that was my intention, I'm an idiot and failed utterly.
The only purpose, EVER, to story telling is to *trick* the audience into believing something they wouldn't ordinarily believe ... to *pull* them along with your rhetoric. </pre>
</blockquote>
I think this is a motivated, if cynical view. If you only tell
stories with this intention, then I can understand that might be why
you believe that is all anyone else might intend. The best
stories, especially those laced with imagery, and built as an
iterated game of storytelling around a campfire or pub table with a
brew in every fist, and are ultimately a group exploration of either
new territories, or familiar territories with a new perspectives.
I often believe that is what we are (trying to) doing here with our
coffee mugs around the fading memory of a table at St John's.<br>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>This is why we're so susceptible to con-men like Trump (and Scott Adams). It's also why Neil deGrasse Tyson is so popular! ... and why actual engineers deliver such horrible presentations ... and why every engineer *hates* the marketing department.</pre>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p><font face="monospace">A startup tech company decided to have a
team-building exercise, so they rented a cabin up in the hills
for a weekend of male bonding (this was before women really
became well represented in tech), learning to play together,
learning to solve problems (can you light a fire with only wet
wood and no paper or gasoline?) in a group context. <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="monospace">As they are unloading their vehicles,
the salesman for the company says "hey, you guys finish
unloading and get a fire started, I'll go rustle us up
something to eat!"</font></p>
<p><font face="monospace">The company is pretty new but they were
all a little familiar with one another already, and the tech
guys give one another a silent nod of agreement that the
salesman would "just get in the way" if he actually tried to
help with any of the practical stuff.</font></p>
<p><font face="monospace">Just as everything gets put in a
reasonable (worse is better?) if not ideal (right-thing?)
place, the salesman comes running in the wide-open front door
with a bear chasing him. As he dives out the back window, he
shouts... "you guys kill this and skin it, and I'll go get
another one!</font>
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Of course, it's plausible to distinguish between communication and story-telling. I do it all the time when I tell people how much I hate poetry. Poetry is anti-communication, but great story-telling. It relies heavily on the audience to collapse the poetic ambiguity down onto their own preferred meaning. And this is exactly what Trump does. Trump is a 1st class poet, never saying anything with any concreteness, which is why people call him a mobster and con-man. Allowing the audience to collapse whatever nonsense he said to their own meaning. This is poetry.</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>You offer a fair line of rhetoric here to persuade me (or others
more likely since I think you know I don't share this perspective
and bare re-assertion of same does not persuasion yield) that we
should eschew imagistic poetry,and figurative storytelling because
it is not precise and in fact is deliberately ambiguous and
requires (allows) the receiver to bring their own experience to
the process. <br>
</p>
<p>This leads me to the point where I claim what you call
"communication" is not that at all... that there is little if any
"co" in the "mmunication" of this type. What you seem to want to
call co-mmunication is more well described by quality engineering
design documents or a clean computer program. Yes, those are the
best things to use when you are trying to build a bridge or
program a computer to do something the designer actually
understands well before she embarks on the process. <br>
</p>
<p>What you often denigrate as "premature binding" seems to be what
you promote here. I understand and agree that figurative and
imagistic language which leaves a great deal to the receiver to
bind to their own "greed and fear triggers" can be an incredibly
dangerous rhetorical device, but that is not a reason to err on
the side of "premature binding". <br>
</p>
<p>Perhaps my preferred notion of "co-mmunication" is more like
"co-creation" or "co-arising". And it might also explain why I
rattle on here from time to time in what apparently is taken by
many to be rambling tangents (aka "dookey splatter"). I think
that I am offering co-mmunication elements for something more
co-creative than essentially acting as a roomful of "calculators"
(in the sense of Feynman's "girls" working on the Manhattan
Project" working together to implement compiler and emulator for
Percean Logic. <br>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>So, where we stand on Trump as a Great Communicator hinges on whether we think poetry is communication or not! Ha! QED! >8^D</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Well (enough) crafted rhetoric, but I guess I'd rather hear a
co-creative story, maybe even in poetic form, that leads us all to
co-discover future states of possibility in the implied Adjacent
Possibles branching out from some actual "Reality" we are in at
the moment, whether it is a precise Newtonian state space or some
quantum superposition of (near) parallel realities.</p>
<p>I feel I know you well enough to believe that nearly everything
you write here (or rant about in your favorite outdoor pub in
Olympia) is in good faith and most of your "provocative speech" is
to provoke precisely the kind of co-creative co-arising that I
also seek.... <br>
</p>
<p>Or maybe this is just a poetry slam for poetry and slamming sake?<br>
</p>
<p>Speaking of ambiguity and late binding: When Doug muttered the
infamous line "Glen, you can be such an a$$hole sometimes!" nearly
a decade ago, I thought he was offering that up in praise. I
believe you actually *did* get his goat that time, but knowing
Doug even better than I do you, I know *he* would have taken that
as an underhanded compliment if/when it was offered to him! <br>
</p>
<p>- steve the aggressive poet<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>On 1/11/21 7:03 PM, Steve Smith wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>Scott Adams might have been speaking ironically? I don't have his original text.
"an effective persuader in a world where facts don't matter" does not "a great communicator" make... it makes something rather different...
<TR;dbttR>
Being able to read a room (or individual), identify their greed and fear triggers, and then play them deftly... that is a manipulative con man, not a communicator. One who can play 74M people and incite a violent attack by many thousands of them on the seat of our government (insurrection) might have cult-leader qualities, but I'd not call them a "great communicator", I'd call it something else entirely.
It isn't clear that what our "glorious leader" has done with the rest of the world leaders over the last 4 years qualifies as "great communication" either, though maybe he did effectively communicate *his* lack of respect for former allies and *his* authoritarian envy for the "success" of the likes of Putin, Erdoğan, Bolsonaro, Duterte, bin Salman, maybe even Kim Jong Un?
To be clear, I don't think much about how many of Trump's followers are "deplorables" because I think of most of them as simply deluded and in his thrall, naturally the deplorable among them are merely the "ragged edged poison tip" of his spear.
I'd be interested to hear what you believe Trump has been communicating to his supporters, his non-supporters, our (former) allies around the world, and our (former) all this time? And is what he's been communicating been honest in fact and in heart?
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>DaveW did not claim Trump was a great communicator — he did (attempt to) cite Scott Adams' book, /Win Bigly,/ where Adams, who considers himself a great communicator, argued that Trump was the same and that was why he was going to win the election against Hillary — which he did.
Steve adds: /"I believe it is duplicitous and divisive to claim he is "a great communicator" That implies both depth and breadth, that he is listening to a broad swath of the country and he is speaking to a broad swath."/
Adams argues, and I completely agree, that this is exactly what Trump did in 2016, does today, and will continue to do in the future. A broad enough swath to win in 2016 and attract 40 million votes in 2020.
I said in 2016 (when I was also predicting Trump's win) that it was a huge mistake for Democrats and the Media then, to focus on the 1-10 percent of Trump supporters who were certifiably wacko and card carrying members of the "Basket of Deplorables," and pretending the 90-99% did not exist and did not have legitimate and perhaps even reasonable reasons for supporting someone — for policy and philosophical reasons — that they found to be despicable as a person.
In this post, I believe SteveS is perpetuating that mistake.
While ranting, may I remark that the social media and tech platforms essentially removed themselves from rule 230 protection (when it gets to the courts) by banning Trump and Parler. Modifying 230 is a bipartisan objective, but it will be real interesting to watch the rhetorical contortions the Dems will have to perform when considering actual legislation.
davew
On Sun, Jan 10, 2021, at 10:57 AM, Steve Smith wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre>I didn't take the bait on Friday's vFriam when DaveW (as I remember)
claimed that Donald J Trump was "a great communicator". (same as
Reagan was credited by his fans and perhaps more reluctantly his
detractors?)
I suppose Trump is very effective at one mode of transmission of his
ugliest sentiments, which I find to be at best a very degenerate form of
CO mmunication.
Whatever skills he has for "reading a crowd" and reflecting back that
which serves his purposes feels more like Neurolinguistic Programming
(NLP) than "communication".
I believe it is duplicitous and divisive to claim he is "a great
communicator" That implies both depth and breadth, that he is listening
to a broad swath of the country and he is speaking to a broad swath.
Perhaps by a twist of interpretation, you *can* claim that he has his
finger on the pulse of those he whips into a seditious and
insurrectional frenzy as well as those he cannot so instead whips into
what has been called "Trump Derangement Syndrome" (TDS). His apparent
ability to instigate TDS in virtually everyone (type A or type B) is
somewhat unique... though authoritarian figures around the world have
done it for millennia?
One (DaveW?) could also argue his sublime ability to give clear
direction/orders to his underlings (e.g. Michael Cohen, et al) without
ever actually saying anything indictable. This is the stuff of Crime
bosses, right? Very effective communicators within a very narrow (and
useful to them) context.
DaveW's assertion on Friday provided me the perspective and motivation
to look a little deeper into the question of just what makes Trump's
style of communication so dangerous. The previous post with the
Politico article about Sedition vs Insurrection came to me from that
unconsciously I think.
</pre>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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<pre></pre>
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</blockquote></div><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div>Merle Lefkoff, Ph.D.<br>Center for Emergent Diplomacy<br><a href="http://emergentdiplomacy.org" target="_blank">emergentdiplomacy.org</a></div><div>Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA</div><div></div><div><br>mobile: (303) 859-5609<br>skype: merle.lelfkoff2<br></div><div>twitter: @merle110<br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>