In an earlier post, I mentioned the problem of attempting to communicate using terminology that, while ostensibly clear, is so potentially offensive or inflammatory that it interferes with communication. This problem is difficult to even discuss, because of the need to reference terminology that is potentially offensive or inflammatory. Still, I view it as an important problem. I apologize in advance to those I may be about to offend, and I suggest you might want to just skip this posting.
This problem is perhaps most often encountered when dealing with matters of race, ethnicity, or anything else concerning broad groups of people. For me, the very best example comes from dealing with the subject of the human genetic abnormality most commonly caused by being born with three rather than two twenty-first chromosomes, technically referred to as “Trisomy 21”. (I have NO expertise on this condition. I am simply using it as an example of a subject that can raise difficulties with communication.)
When I was a child, I learned that people with a certain genetic abnormality were referred to as “mongoloid”. I was taught that people with this genetic abnormality faced varying degrees of mental and physical challenges, but were normal people who lived normal lives.*
Years later, I was told that the term “mongoloid” was offensive and demeaning, and should never be used, and should be basically replaced with the term “Down’s Syndrome”. When I asked WHAT was so offensive and demeaning about the term “mongoloid”, I was told that, among other things, the full term was “mongolian idiot” or “mongolian idiocy”. (Curiously, though I have heard the term “mongoloid” dozens or even hundreds of times used by a wide variety of people, the ONLY people I have ever heard use the term “mongolian idiot” are those advocating the use of the term “Down’s Syndrome” ... that is, the ONLY people who I have heard USE the term are the ones who say it is deeply offensive.)
For several years, this created a difficult situation. If I used the term “Down’s Syndrome”, most of the people I encountered had no idea what I was talking about, and I would have to say something to the effect of, “You know, mongoloid.” I struggled with this issue, as my choices seemed to be limited to either being misunderstood, or using an offensive, demeaning term. One of my coping strategies during this period was to use the scientific term for the genetic disorder, “Trisomy 21”, but that term was understood by even fewer people than the term “Down’s Syndrome”.
Over the years, this particular problem seemed to resolve itself as the term “Down’s Syndrome” became widely used and understood, though as I was writing this I did some online research and apparently there has been a movement to replace “Down’s Syndrome” with “Down Syndrome”.
I still struggle with the underlying philosophical problem of how to communicate clearly when some of the best-understood terms are considered offensive or inflammatory. I continue to believe that clear communication should be the priority -- but offensive terms, even if easily understood, can sometimes stand in the way of clear communication. There is more to clear communication than being correct, and sometimes there is even more than being clear.
Truth is complicated.
* As I was typing, I automatically placed the word "normal" in quotation marks, to acknowledge that the entire concept of "normal" is always a bit dubious and open to interpretation. Later, I realized my quotation marks might be viewed as expressing reservations about the "normalcy" of those with Down Syndrome, so I have removed them.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Correctness versus Communication
The discussion of the debate over whether to call certain guitar chords “barre” or “bar” has pushed me to contemplate the idea that sometimes “correctness” conflicts with “communication”.
These days, any mention of “correctness” with regard to “communication” brings up the idea of “politically correct” -- which is actually not my focus here, but I guess I need to briefly address it.
Though phrases like “politically incorrect” or “politically correct” or even the abbreviation “P.C.” get tossed around a lot, the precise definition of these terms is not widely agreed upon. I am generally a fan of Merriam-Webster, and their online dictionary defines “politically correct” as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated”. A similar definition is posted in the “Free Online Dictionary” -- “Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.”
Various sources cite the fact that the phrase “politically correct” is general used in a disparaging manner -- it is commonly thought to be a BAD thing to be “politically correct”. Without going into a thorough discussion, I will agree that I consider “political correctness” to, in general, be a negative thing, if for no other reason than it inhibits free-flowing communication -- but I acknowledge that political correctness is a complicated topic.
My focus here, though, is actually other forms of correctness, and the extent to which they can interfere with communication. Here are two real-life examples:
My late father was a physician, and regularly attended medical conferences where guest experts would lecture on medical topics. There was a certain lecturer who my father particularly enjoyed, and encountered various times over the years. Sadly, I do not know this lecturer’s name. My father mentioned that eventually this lecturer became totally blind, but still delivered flawless commentaries to his slide shows, from memory. At one lecture, when referring to the large intestine, or “colon”, the lecturer repeatedly pronounced “colon” in an unusual manner, placing equal accent on both syllables, and saying “ahn” rather than “in” or “en” for the second syllable. At the end of the lecture, a member of the audience criticized the lecturer for “mispronouncing” the word “colon”. As my father related the story to me, the lecturer responded that he prepared his lectures very carefully, rehearsing and fine-tuning before a variety of listeners. He had discovered that when he pronounced “colon” CORRECTLY, his listeners often had trouble understanding what word he was saying. When he MISPRONOUNCED it, they understood he was saying the word “colon”, though they believed he was mispronouncing it. So, in the interest of clearer communication, he now consciously mispronounced the word “colon”.
When I tell people the story of this deliberate mispronunciation, they often seem to find it troubling. I find it difficult to argue with the goal of clear communication.
Example number two: I knew an intelligent, well-educated, highly skilled musician, who had strong feelings about the terms used to name her primary instrument, which many people would call the “French horn”. My friend insisted that the correct term was simply “horn”, citing, among other things, the idea that there has never been anything particularly “French” about the “French horn”. I should note that I never completely understood her objections to the term “French horn”; perhaps I am misrepresenting her views. Personally, I lack the expertise to know whether it is truly incorrect to refer to the instrument as a “French horn”. I know that among orchestral musicians, the word “horn” is sometimes adequate to refer to that particular instrument. Unfortunately, to many people, in many contexts, the word “horn” refers to a wide variety of instruments, rather than just the “French horn”, including trumpets, trombones, and tubas, and sometimes even things like saxophones and clarinets. So, when people would ask my friend what instrument she played, and she would reply “horn”, they would often follow up by asking “WHICH horn?” My friend, though possibly being “correct”, was standing in the way of clear communication, refusing to use the terms which would be understood by the larger audience.
These two examples show two sides of the problem, or at least two totally different ways of dealing with it. The medical lecturer believed his top priority was to be understood, and was willing to be viewed as guilty of mispronouncing a word. The musician was more concerned about using the “correct” terminology for her instrument, and was willing to sacrifice clarity of communication and possibly necessitate follow-up questions. As with so many subjects, there are differences regarding personal priorities.
This is a complicated issue, and I do not claim to have the answers.
There is a separate but related issue regarding communication that is so potentially offensive or inflammatory that the clarity is impeded, as in matters of race and ethnicity, among other things. I had intended to go ahead and discuss that issue, but have decided to wait, so as to not risk impeding the clarity of what I have already written.
Truth is complicated.
These days, any mention of “correctness” with regard to “communication” brings up the idea of “politically correct” -- which is actually not my focus here, but I guess I need to briefly address it.
Though phrases like “politically incorrect” or “politically correct” or even the abbreviation “P.C.” get tossed around a lot, the precise definition of these terms is not widely agreed upon. I am generally a fan of Merriam-Webster, and their online dictionary defines “politically correct” as “conforming to a belief that language and practices which could offend political sensibilities (as in matters of sex or race) should be eliminated”. A similar definition is posted in the “Free Online Dictionary” -- “Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.”
Various sources cite the fact that the phrase “politically correct” is general used in a disparaging manner -- it is commonly thought to be a BAD thing to be “politically correct”. Without going into a thorough discussion, I will agree that I consider “political correctness” to, in general, be a negative thing, if for no other reason than it inhibits free-flowing communication -- but I acknowledge that political correctness is a complicated topic.
My focus here, though, is actually other forms of correctness, and the extent to which they can interfere with communication. Here are two real-life examples:
My late father was a physician, and regularly attended medical conferences where guest experts would lecture on medical topics. There was a certain lecturer who my father particularly enjoyed, and encountered various times over the years. Sadly, I do not know this lecturer’s name. My father mentioned that eventually this lecturer became totally blind, but still delivered flawless commentaries to his slide shows, from memory. At one lecture, when referring to the large intestine, or “colon”, the lecturer repeatedly pronounced “colon” in an unusual manner, placing equal accent on both syllables, and saying “ahn” rather than “in” or “en” for the second syllable. At the end of the lecture, a member of the audience criticized the lecturer for “mispronouncing” the word “colon”. As my father related the story to me, the lecturer responded that he prepared his lectures very carefully, rehearsing and fine-tuning before a variety of listeners. He had discovered that when he pronounced “colon” CORRECTLY, his listeners often had trouble understanding what word he was saying. When he MISPRONOUNCED it, they understood he was saying the word “colon”, though they believed he was mispronouncing it. So, in the interest of clearer communication, he now consciously mispronounced the word “colon”.
When I tell people the story of this deliberate mispronunciation, they often seem to find it troubling. I find it difficult to argue with the goal of clear communication.
Example number two: I knew an intelligent, well-educated, highly skilled musician, who had strong feelings about the terms used to name her primary instrument, which many people would call the “French horn”. My friend insisted that the correct term was simply “horn”, citing, among other things, the idea that there has never been anything particularly “French” about the “French horn”. I should note that I never completely understood her objections to the term “French horn”; perhaps I am misrepresenting her views. Personally, I lack the expertise to know whether it is truly incorrect to refer to the instrument as a “French horn”. I know that among orchestral musicians, the word “horn” is sometimes adequate to refer to that particular instrument. Unfortunately, to many people, in many contexts, the word “horn” refers to a wide variety of instruments, rather than just the “French horn”, including trumpets, trombones, and tubas, and sometimes even things like saxophones and clarinets. So, when people would ask my friend what instrument she played, and she would reply “horn”, they would often follow up by asking “WHICH horn?” My friend, though possibly being “correct”, was standing in the way of clear communication, refusing to use the terms which would be understood by the larger audience.
These two examples show two sides of the problem, or at least two totally different ways of dealing with it. The medical lecturer believed his top priority was to be understood, and was willing to be viewed as guilty of mispronouncing a word. The musician was more concerned about using the “correct” terminology for her instrument, and was willing to sacrifice clarity of communication and possibly necessitate follow-up questions. As with so many subjects, there are differences regarding personal priorities.
This is a complicated issue, and I do not claim to have the answers.
There is a separate but related issue regarding communication that is so potentially offensive or inflammatory that the clarity is impeded, as in matters of race and ethnicity, among other things. I had intended to go ahead and discuss that issue, but have decided to wait, so as to not risk impeding the clarity of what I have already written.
Truth is complicated.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Blog First Anniversary
This blog turns one year old today. This is of debatable importance, but it does offer a good opportunity for reflection.
One of my primary reasons for doing this blog is TO LEARN TO DO A BLOG. In the words of Michelangelo, “Still I am learning.” In some ways, I have just begun to scratch the surface of blogging. For instance, so far I have posted only text -- no audio or visual data. Only recently have I begun to post links to other URLs, and in particular to a blog at which I posted a comment.
This brings up the idea that I believe only a few people have actually READ anything on this blog. I do not advertise it, and I have not informed even my friends and relatives of its title or URL, so visitors are quite rare, though there are some attempts to leave spam/ad comments. The entire “comments” aspect is one of the things I am learning about blogging. For now, I enjoy the occasional comment, both for learning about the blog process, and for stimulating ideas and discussion, but I am fine with having an extremely limited audience.
Overall, I am satisfied with the first year of this blog, though in many ways it is sort of running behind schedule. It has been a busier year than I anticipated -- non-blog-wise -- and there has not been much time for writing or for learning the intricacies of blogging. Still, I AM learning.
There are three blogging problems for which I have not found any solutions:
1) Realistically, I probably do not have enough “free” time to do this blog. Free time is a complicated topic, and too complicated to discuss here (because, among other things, there is not enough TIME ...).
2) To a certain extent, everything I write in this blog builds upon what I have already written. Yet I cannot assume that someone reading one of my blog entries has read everything leading up to it. In my mind, none of my blog entries truly stand alone. As a minimum, all are dependent upon certain basic concepts, like the idea that written communication is fundamentally unclear, and the fact that I believe the rule about always placing periods inside of quotation marks is WRONG. More specifically, I sometimes realize as I am writing that I need to explore some other idea FIRST -- so I stop writing and instead write about that first idea before writing about the second idea ... but there is no guarantee that someone reading the second idea will have read the first idea.
3) I have strong opinions about politics, and would like to share them, but among my strong opinions is the idea that we have become so polarized politically that many people automatically reject any idea that they believe comes from “the opposing side”. I truly believe that if George W. Bush and Barack Obama were to give precisely the same speech, Republicans would praise Bush’s speech and condemn Obama’s, while Democrats would praise Obama’s and condemn Bush’s. Furthermore, I believe this goes way beyond politics. Once I start stating my opinions on politics, those who perceive that they are on “the other side” may not even seriously consider my opinions on music or dog-training. One of the main points of this blog is COMMUNICATION. I cannot communicate if people refuse to consider my ideas.
As I said, I have no ready solutions for any of these problems. Regarding time, I will probably just struggle along with slightly lowered expectations. I hope, on average, to post one new blog entry each week. Regarding the fact that each blog entry builds upon the previous ones, I will perhaps try to link back to some of my earlier entries. In some ways, I keep stating the same ideas over and over again, so perhaps it doesn’t matter so much whether anyone has read any earlier entries. Regarding the problem of alienating people who then decide to automatically reject my opinions, there is probably nothing I can do, so I hope to go ahead and post more on politics and other controversial topics in the coming year, especially considering that there is an important election coming up.
I also hope to post some sort of “about” or “profile” page. I have mixed emotions about this. I like the blog entries to speak for themselves, but I feel a sort of vague obligation to post SOMETHING about myself.
This brings up the fact that after a full year, what I refer to as “this blog” continues to exist as basically two twin blogs, with mostly identical postings. The two blog hosts have different formats, though, so some things will be different, including the “about” or “profile” page. In particular, one format encourages creating specific “pages” -- I may post a “quotations” page or a “basic truths” page on that blog, but I am not sure how I will go about posting that information in the blog that does not have specific “pages”.
I continue to wonder whether I will run out of things to write about. So far, I generally have much more in mind to write about than I have time to write, and I struggle with figuring out which topics to choose, and whether the order of topics makes a difference in clarity and understanding. I feel a bit ... well, I suppose the best word is “guilty” ... about the fact that I tend to write things well in advance of actually posting them online. It lacks a certain spontaneity, but it gives me a chance to reconsider my words, and especially to try and arrange my ideas in a certain logical order.
Perhaps I should focus more upon the fact that there is a very real question about whether most of my blog entries will ever be read by anyone else, so most of my concerns are totally academic.
Truth is complicated.
One of my primary reasons for doing this blog is TO LEARN TO DO A BLOG. In the words of Michelangelo, “Still I am learning.” In some ways, I have just begun to scratch the surface of blogging. For instance, so far I have posted only text -- no audio or visual data. Only recently have I begun to post links to other URLs, and in particular to a blog at which I posted a comment.
This brings up the idea that I believe only a few people have actually READ anything on this blog. I do not advertise it, and I have not informed even my friends and relatives of its title or URL, so visitors are quite rare, though there are some attempts to leave spam/ad comments. The entire “comments” aspect is one of the things I am learning about blogging. For now, I enjoy the occasional comment, both for learning about the blog process, and for stimulating ideas and discussion, but I am fine with having an extremely limited audience.
Overall, I am satisfied with the first year of this blog, though in many ways it is sort of running behind schedule. It has been a busier year than I anticipated -- non-blog-wise -- and there has not been much time for writing or for learning the intricacies of blogging. Still, I AM learning.
There are three blogging problems for which I have not found any solutions:
1) Realistically, I probably do not have enough “free” time to do this blog. Free time is a complicated topic, and too complicated to discuss here (because, among other things, there is not enough TIME ...).
2) To a certain extent, everything I write in this blog builds upon what I have already written. Yet I cannot assume that someone reading one of my blog entries has read everything leading up to it. In my mind, none of my blog entries truly stand alone. As a minimum, all are dependent upon certain basic concepts, like the idea that written communication is fundamentally unclear, and the fact that I believe the rule about always placing periods inside of quotation marks is WRONG. More specifically, I sometimes realize as I am writing that I need to explore some other idea FIRST -- so I stop writing and instead write about that first idea before writing about the second idea ... but there is no guarantee that someone reading the second idea will have read the first idea.
3) I have strong opinions about politics, and would like to share them, but among my strong opinions is the idea that we have become so polarized politically that many people automatically reject any idea that they believe comes from “the opposing side”. I truly believe that if George W. Bush and Barack Obama were to give precisely the same speech, Republicans would praise Bush’s speech and condemn Obama’s, while Democrats would praise Obama’s and condemn Bush’s. Furthermore, I believe this goes way beyond politics. Once I start stating my opinions on politics, those who perceive that they are on “the other side” may not even seriously consider my opinions on music or dog-training. One of the main points of this blog is COMMUNICATION. I cannot communicate if people refuse to consider my ideas.
As I said, I have no ready solutions for any of these problems. Regarding time, I will probably just struggle along with slightly lowered expectations. I hope, on average, to post one new blog entry each week. Regarding the fact that each blog entry builds upon the previous ones, I will perhaps try to link back to some of my earlier entries. In some ways, I keep stating the same ideas over and over again, so perhaps it doesn’t matter so much whether anyone has read any earlier entries. Regarding the problem of alienating people who then decide to automatically reject my opinions, there is probably nothing I can do, so I hope to go ahead and post more on politics and other controversial topics in the coming year, especially considering that there is an important election coming up.
I also hope to post some sort of “about” or “profile” page. I have mixed emotions about this. I like the blog entries to speak for themselves, but I feel a sort of vague obligation to post SOMETHING about myself.
This brings up the fact that after a full year, what I refer to as “this blog” continues to exist as basically two twin blogs, with mostly identical postings. The two blog hosts have different formats, though, so some things will be different, including the “about” or “profile” page. In particular, one format encourages creating specific “pages” -- I may post a “quotations” page or a “basic truths” page on that blog, but I am not sure how I will go about posting that information in the blog that does not have specific “pages”.
I continue to wonder whether I will run out of things to write about. So far, I generally have much more in mind to write about than I have time to write, and I struggle with figuring out which topics to choose, and whether the order of topics makes a difference in clarity and understanding. I feel a bit ... well, I suppose the best word is “guilty” ... about the fact that I tend to write things well in advance of actually posting them online. It lacks a certain spontaneity, but it gives me a chance to reconsider my words, and especially to try and arrange my ideas in a certain logical order.
Perhaps I should focus more upon the fact that there is a very real question about whether most of my blog entries will ever be read by anyone else, so most of my concerns are totally academic.
Truth is complicated.
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