2005-07-01
The Communication Gap
We, the “good guys,” try to influence them, the “bad guys,”
We talk and write using multi-syllable words and complex sentence structures to weave abstract arguments that can ramble for a page. They speak and write using simple words and simple sentences. They often are nasty, but we understand what they are saying. They, for the most part, are, in my judgment, too simple to understand us. They see or hear only certain words which they then process according to their preconceived notions of what those words imply. “WMD” to them means that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction that threaten us and that’s why we are in Iraq. It doesn’t matter that it has been shown many times over that there are no WMDs in Iraq. They don’t hear it. They do not understand partially because they don’t want to understand and partially because they aren’t equipped to understand long-winded complicated explanations.
There is a huge communication gap between them and us and, insofar as that communication gap exists, our efforts to change things will remain extremely difficult for we have to penetrate not only their unwillingness to listen to us but their inability to comprehend what we are trying to say.
Some of you may have heard the story of Moishe and the Pope. It demonstrates that there can be a communication gap even if not one word is spoken or written.. The story goes like this:
A century or two ago, the Pope decided that all the Jews had to leave Rome. Naturally there was a big uproar from the Jewish community. So the Pope made a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish community. If the Jew won, the Jews could stay. If the Pope won, the Jews would leave.
The Jews realized that they had no choice. They looked around for a champion who could defend their faith, but no one wanted to volunteer. It was too risky. So they finally picked an old man named Moishe, who spent his life sweeping up after people, to represent them. Being old and poor, he had less to lose, so he agreed. He asked only for one addition to the debate. Not being used to saying very much as he cleaned up around the settlement, he asked that neither side be allowed to talk. The pope agreed. The day of the debate came. Moishe and the Pope sat opposite each other for a full minute. Then the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers. Moishe looked at him and raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers in a circle above his head. Moishe pointed to the ground where he sat.
The Pope pulled out a wafer and a glass of wine. Moishe pulled out an apple.
The Pope stood up and said, “I give up. This man is too good. The Jews can stay.” An hour later, the cardinals were all around the Pope asking him what happened. The Pope said: “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity. He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions. Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us. He responded by pointing to the ground, showing that God was also right here with us. I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show that God absolves us from our sins. He pulled out an apple to remind me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?” Meanwhile, the Jewish community had crowded around Moishe, amazed that this old, almost feeble-minded man had done what all their scholars had insisted was impossible.
“What happened?” they asked.
“Well,” said Moishe, “First he said to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here. I told him that not one of us was leaving. Then he told me that this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I let him know that we were staying right here.”
“And then?” asked a woman.
“I don't know,” said Moishe. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine.”'
One wonders what kind of communication gap occurs when Sharon sits down to talk with Abbas. When Bush sits down to talk with Blair. When Cheney sits down to talk with Tenet. When Rumsfeld sits down to talk with himself.
It is very difficult to get some of our shiniest liberal intellects to understand how large the communication gaps are. Most Bushits don’t read a magazine such as The Nation for two reasons; one, because they know it’s a liberal magazine and would disagree with it, and two, because they can’t understand what the articles are saying because of the way that they are written.
Expression of intellectual thought about complex matters is very necessary if one is communicating with other intellectuals. If one is communicating with the “common man,” it’s entirely another story. John Kerry, hardly an intellectual, is a good example of communication failure. Far too bound up in trying to explain complexity in a complex way, Kerry frequently cannot come directly to a point. Howard Dean, on the other hand, can be so to the point that his directness offends some people... usually intellectuals. However, they, those on the “other side” who he is addressing, know what Howard Dean is saying and it frightens them, so they ridicule him. He’s a dangerous man to them because he can speak like many of them do, that is, in a crude, direct, emotional, no-holds-barred manner.
If the fine writers we have cannot bring their writing to the level of ordinary people, they are only wasting their time communicating with their fellow intellectuals who also cannot bring their writing and, yes, their speaking, down to the level of ordinary people ... the level of the average high school graduate. I have previously pointed out that huge differences exist between people in their ability to think and express themselves abstractly. That doesn’t mean that we are talking about differences between good people and bad people; far from it. But we have to recognize those differences in ability to think abstractly when we communicate and we have failed.
I say to all of those perched atop their mounds of intellectually complex speeches and papers “get down to the level of ordinary people.” You have to operate on many levels if you are to be an effective force in the solution of problems of everyday life. If you want to stay aloof and removed from having any effectiveness in changing the miserable conditions that now exist in our country, then that’s certainly your choice, but if you want to be “activist” and move the mountains that have to be moved, you had better start trying to make speeches and write using simple words coupled with a heretofore missing directness.
The severed arms and legs and heads and bits of flesh of women and kids strewn over the streets and fields of Iraq speak for themselves. They are direct testimony to the bloody mess that the Bush gang has brought on. We now know that Bush bombed Iraq well before the Congress voted to go to war. That is a criminal offense. The gang of Bush must go. Write and speak about that using basic, simple words.
