May 23, 2006

• Poor Communication Skills

  Every once in a while I’ll read or hear a response to a comment that starts something like this:
  “Your comment shows a complete lack of understanding…”
  or
  “You clearly have little or know knowledge of the topic on which you are commenting. Those with experience about…”
  or
  “By stating <x>, you demonstrate your embarrasing lack of comprehension of the subject matter…”

  And so on…

  These kinds of comments enrage me. Often I agree with the comments that the person is making about the subject matter at hand, and often I do in fact disagree with the person being criticized, but I despise this method of communication. The comment seems directly designed to belittle the person to whom the writer is responding. It is almost as of the commentor is trying to build a bit of credability for his own comment and establish himself as more of an expert in the subject matter by attacking the comments of another. This is not just rude, it’s somewhat cruel. It brings to mind images of standing on top of others to get to your goal. It’s like grinding other people under your boot because you consider them less ‘worthy’ of consideration of than yourself. It’s selfish and in always wrong, imo.

  Now it is a little different when the comment is not a direct response to a comment by another but a response to a general group of comment. I find nothing at all offensive about asserting that all of the people who believe X are woefully ignorant of points A, B, and C. I strongly suspect that these kinds of communications are where this mode of speaking came about. Writers and thinkings and commentators might write or say something like “When critics of <A>  assert  <P>  they reveal themselves to have a complete and utter lack of comprehension of <Z>. They prove that they have none of the requisite experience in <W> to be able to judge matters of <R>”  and so on. Such comments are however general in nature. Though they do border on rudeness and there are probably better ways to express the same ideas, the comments are not personal, they are not attacking and individual and they are, usually, not meant to build personal credability.

  But the far more direct commentaries that have been born from this kind of thing are a different matter all together. Now it seems that people will drop this kind of statement at any time just for the whim of it on any subject matter that they have a passing degree of familiarity about or think that they do. And many a truely knowledgible expert will be even more forceful in their critical response and more offensive in their response. Often the comment that they are responding to isn’t even really an attempt to assert expertise of a subject matter. For example, if I read a comment on a web page and I respond something like “You wrote <A>, but I don’t see why <A> is true. In my experienced do <C>, <D>, and <E>,  <B> seemed to be true much of the time instead.”   Why would anyone take from sucha statement that I am trying to assert my expertise on the subject? I am mearly making a comment about the nature of my experiences and sharing my observations. I am perfectly fine with someone responding “In your experiences, <B> would indeed be true, however in experiences <X>, <Y>, and <Z> which are more common in contexts <P> and <Q> which are more relevant to most observers, you’d find that <A> holds a vast majority of the time.”   Unfortunately now’a'days the response you are much more likely to get would be “You’re experiences are irrelevant and you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. It is invalid for you to ciriticize the article writer on the basis of such flimsy experiences. How. Dare. You. Anyone with obviously relevant experiences in <X>, <Y>, and <Z> know well that <A> holds. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool.” 

  Isn’t that strange? You’d think I had actually said something like “<A> is wrong. The writer is stupid. If you do <X>, <Y>, and <Z> clearly <B> is right. This fool should stop writing and anyone who agrees with him is a moron.”  But clearly I didn’t say anything of the kind, but that would indeed justify such a harsh response.

  It’s almost as if people are stuck in flame-response mode. Dialogue has gotten more and more critical over the last few years and disagreements about substantive issues are becoming more and more common. Communication is faster and easier about a great many subject matters in very short order. Whereas in the old days you could surround yourself with like minded people for a majority of your life, now if you spend even a brief amount of time communicating in the online world you will run right smack dab into thousands of contrasting opinions founded on the basis of drastically different life experiences. What’s more the exposure to so many competing ideas and opinions online causes even the people you meet in real life to have more varied opinions that might not fit in with your world view. People have a hard time handeling this shift. It is hard to adapt. I believe this is the very source of the advent of flaming online and I believe it is the source of the anti-flame mentality that is becoming more common day by day both online and in the real life.

  But I find it deeply disturbing to thing that these kinds of modes of communication might be becoming more and more socially acceptable. It’s as if people are no longer being offended by reading statements that start by referring to another by calling them completely witless. Or at least the embarrased or disturbed are afraid to comment because they manifestly don’t want to get into the uncomfortable experience of a flame war online any more than they want to get into an angry argument in person. But of course, to the person making the rude comment that makes them feel justified in their commentary. After all they ended the discussion while expressing opinions based on their own expertise and no one bothered to contradict them. Thus they would see themselves as having avoided a flame war and enlightened the ignorant at the same time. They don’t see it as having offended a person unjustly and ended what might have been a productive exchange of information.

  Really, how are we to learn if any attempt to present the knowledge we’ve gained from our own experiences is met with derision and scorn by those who have more knowledge? Doesn’t the path to knowledge begin by sharing your perspective continue on to discovering where and how and why you are wrong and then pass through the acquisition of more experiences that provide a greater understanding of the subject? If not that then I don’t know how you learn anything unless you simply take the word of the loudest and most obnoxious speaker as fact. Human nature is not like that though. Rudeness will just get people’s back up. I’m more inclined to believe and try to justify an irrational position if someone attacks me and calls me ignorant for having ever dared to express my position in the first place.

  Maybe we need to ask ourselves, why are we communicating? Is it to share our knowledge to others and perhaps gain some knowledge and understanding in the process or is it simply to prove to people how smart we are by making others look the fool?

  • 8:22 pm
  • 1 Comment