In communication theory one of the strongest schools of thought is transactional analysis. This suggests that communication break down occurs when a person speak to another not as adult to adult, or parent to parent, or child to child but rather innappropriately as in parent to child or adult to child, the so called ‘talking down’ or ‘we are not amused’ or ‘who made you sheriff’.
I have been fascinated by the shift in political debate from logic to purely rhetoric and marketing. For a decade I’ve used Canadian Parliament as an example of the worst communication strategies. I’ve suggested our PM should wear a wife beater under shirt because his ‘gas lighting’ and ‘never addressing questions’ but using all openings for promotions and blaming is the outright lowest form of communication.
There is a palpable arrogance of the indoctrinated left who believe that they are ‘right’ as only a parent can believe they are right and rapidly their discussion shifts from adult to adult or child to child into their taking a parental tone in speech or the very nature of the communication.
In marriage therapy I commonly encountered this distraction from the discussion at hand when one or the other said,”don’t use that tone’. As a hamm radio operator we commonly tell each other to turn down the ‘squelch’ however this is mearely a break in the communication to repair the technology it doesn’t ‘stop’ the discussion. However emotional communicators can easily ‘derail’ discussions by shifting from adult to adult to being the ‘child’ and suddenly claiming ‘victim ship’ or by claiming the parent and suggesting ‘you shouldn’t speak like that’.
In the movie Grand Canyon a punk brandishing a gun says ‘do you respect me? The old guy replies “I respect the gun”:.
I was drinking and joking on holidays with a group of tourists we’d met in Mexico decades ago when this fellow out of the blue, or it seemed to me, said ‘You can’t speak to me like that. You have to show me more respect.” “I’m sorry I said “I didn’t mean any disrespect’, I said not knowing what I’d said or done that triggered his reaction. But at that moment he waved to some men in the near empty bar and three guys came over and opened their sports jackets showing their guns. I’d never seen a mini oozie outside of a movie so truly remember that moment. The other two guys had hand guns. I can honestly say I respect the gun and apologized profusely and was glad to get away alive. I also never wanted to play there again and have never returned.
The old adage is you have to ‘earn respect’. Much older and more experienced and now having worked in jails and asylums I can honestly say I probably didn’t do or say anything to ‘upset’ this person since as a cartel criminal with respect based on violence earned as such I would tend to believe this is a game he plays to assert his authority with his gang, joining in with rich tourist, I was poor in the company I was that night, mostly university professors and businessmen . None but him would ever have had the need to dominate the conversation with such a shore of force. There is this idea of an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. By contrast I remember an argument with a Harvard PHD I had and I remember we all deferred to his opinion in the matter of physics not only because of his obvious authority on the subject but also because he made sense.
My South American professor friends says she finds Canadians insipid because they won’t talk about religion or politics and are too emotionally immature to shout about such subjects as she and her friends do in cafes when they’re not taking sides in soccer games. She escaped from being tortured and left her country when a dictator took over and only returned a decade later. I enjoyed working with refugees and torture victims and listening to the lessons they learned about politic. So many these last few years have told me that the communism they escape in Eastern Europe is now here. Persians tell me that Trudeau is just like the Ayatollah’s men. Always there ‘politeness’ and ‘people playing nice’ then the gloves come off.
The business of ‘victim ship’ is ‘micro trauma’ and of course those who can be hurt by a ‘slight’ are very special and can get ‘stolen glory’ from those who by contrast have the scars of jails, cigarette burns and lashes. Stolen glory
The definition of ‘respect is the ‘feeling of admiration or high regard for someone or something”. Synonyms for respect are ‘esteem’ and ‘veneration’.
So in a discussion if a person uses ‘rhetoric’ to ‘muddy the discussion’ , a particularly distasteful form of communication like ‘muddying the waters’ does saying the person who has assumed the role of sheriff or parent is being ‘hypocritical’ suggest ‘disrespect’. I respect the gun. The victim wins by massing others to do ‘proxy violence’.
The women’s liberation movement and suffragette movements arose in the time of chivalry when a woman could feint and men would rally to defend her. Now we have an era of ‘false allegations of sexual violence’ or ‘rape’ where so often the ‘victim’ says ‘well he would have ‘or he had that tone’ or ‘micro violence.’
In parliament the opposition party constantly said yes or no answer please to the childish leader who would not engage as an adult but use any opportunity to blame, shame and then self advocate while never answering the question. We were raised on Perry Mason which became the Lincoln Lawyer but all we see is Goebells and Hollywood. Accuse the other guy of what you did and lie lie lie.
There a concept of ‘terms of engagement’. In marriage therapy no one plays the ‘court game’ because who threw the first punch can never be answered. Respect is earned.
We are kind to each other. Being kind to the proverbial Hitler does not mean I would treat him with admiration or high regard.
I shared with my friend the anti Americanism is again being promoted by our government. It was the same when the American objected to Victoria dumping its sewage in the oceans so Canadian condoms were all over the Washington beaches along with other refuge. Eventually Victoria cleaned its sewage but politically it demonized Americans and played the ‘we are Canadians’ card implying our shit didn’t stink.
I miss the CBC with Barbara Fromm and truth and honesty in Canada before the Liberal Party became communist china with the Mao Cultural revolution censorship and the CBC as the liberal newsletter.
I’m a conservative and remember when I stopped drinking that I realized that my being liberal was because they supported free drugs and binge drinking. I miss the country songs that preceded today’s marketing of booze and the rock and roll songs that promoted peace and had insights that we don’t hear in rap. I am so dissapointed in the news. I probably don’t show a lot of ‘respect’ to people in political discussions because it always seems that someone is getting paid for their position and my own experience is dealing with the elderly and disabiled on fixed pensions and the fat cat liberals and those with indexed pensions or owning houses that are sky rocketing in price while the food banks are being used the highest amount in history.
I’m not retired. I don’t’ have a pension or health care or all the advantages that others have but I have had wealth and privilege and am doing just fine but the atmosphere of fear that has been percolated in Canada this last decade affects me as all those i know and care about are buying chicken instead of steak and staying home as opposed to going on vacation.
So I’m probably just not a wanting to hear more ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’. “Jan 6 was as bad as Pearl Harbour” Democrat ranting and Bill Gates polluting the sky allegedly to block the sun and slow global warming with C02 the food of plants and our breath demonized by arts students. It’s all bizarre and I’m told again ‘You are being expelled for saying ‘fuck’.
I respect the gun and I don’t want to play with people who want me to ‘behave’ as they do. Disagree with me but don’t tell me how to behave in peaceful conversation.
I remember being drunk at a New Years Eve party and these two women showed up for the lobster feast my friend put on. I think I said ‘nice tits’ because the woman had nice tits and was wearing a big hole fish net top that did nothing to cover herself up. She was competing with skin and frankly I must have thought they were nice tits because I said that. She had a glass of scotch and threw it at me. I ducked . And the glass broke on the wall. The host came over and asked her to leave. She said ‘did you hear what he said. My friend said yes, “nice tits’. Bill thinks of himself as a conneoseiur of tits and probably is but we respect freedom of speech in this house and don’t respect violence. If Bill hadn’t ducked you would have hurt him and as it is I’l have to fix the damage your glass did to the wall so please get out’.
I was so disheartened to hear that British are being jailed because there is no longer ‘freedom of speech’ there. L
I am here on the border of California, Arizona and Mexico. I’ve been enjoying talking with people with a variety of view. Interestingly the Mexican merchants I was speaking with who my friend Laura and I like are appalled at their corruption and mismanagement of cartels and borders. I was fascinated to hear them describing their president as we describe Trudeau. Meanwhile I was in a line and a dozen of Americans around me were thanking their lucky stars for Trump because they had hope for their economy now. Several vets were glad that he was pulling them out of the stalled wars which 70% of money was going missing.
Another Canadian and I shared how we so enjoyed being able to travel to the US and hear a different view from the propaganda of CBC and eastern Canada. I’ve personally been enjoying Smith from Alberta’s and wonder what I’m doing staying in BC when so many of the people I respect and admire have moved to Alberta. Well, I keep thinking about fasting from food as it’s obesity that’s the basis of cancer and fasting counteracts it. Fasting also can cure cancer early.
Yet here I am feeling alone and isolated wishing I could agree with the sickness of communism as it pollutes . I’ve spent so much of my life at variance with group. Not drinking these last 26 years has been a huge difference. I sometimes miss the stupidity of dope smoking . I got to church and hear the minister sharing that the pope says we shouldn’t be putting up walls and I can only think of this Emperor Pope Francis in his Vatican country a veritable fortress.
Hypocrisy. I thought I was a hippie because I was turned on to hypocrisy.
Oh well I miss the editor who would take this reduce it to a paragraph and make me a bunch of money. As it is I journal and journal and journal and feel better in the end .
Saying thank you Jesus. I hope I can stay in Canada. I love the wilderness. My friend moved to Texas. I thought of going to Ireland yet I love my life now leaving BC for Jan and February to get sun because I’m afraid of dying of pneumonia now having had a near death experience with Covid in Bombay. I also had a year of treatment for TB and too many friends are dying. I’m of that age. Another mentor died.
It’s a sunny blue sky day without the wind and warmth instead. I have a little work and calls to do but really it’s a free day between dental treatments. Tomorrow my mouth will be done and I can move along with a major task of self care and treatment completed.
Thank you Jesus. Thank you God. Thank You Holy Spirit. Thank you Trinity. Thank you 3 in 1 god . Thank you ancestors . Thank you Mom and Dad. Thank you brother and cousins and aunts and uncles and living and dead. Thank you grandparents and great grandparents. Thank you neanderthals’ . Thank you Homo Sapiens. Thank you CO2 and O2. Thank you Sun and Moon and Stars. Thank you planet EArth.
Thank you God of Gods.
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