Walls and Bridges
I am a verified listener in my other profile, however, I'm finding I can relate to people here better as a member. The listening skills I'm learning here at 7cups are very helpful in my own life, and I can see how now, in today's political climate, people need to learn to listen to each other as never before. Never before have we had the tools to so readily communicate with each other, and paradoxically these tools are used more often than not to build walls and not bridges. Not knocking walls (knock, knock!), they have their place in community architecture, but maybe in conversations like the ones I'm hoping to have we can also build some badly-needed bridges.
@RarelyCharlie and whoever else might want to add some notes, inspiration, and encouragement.
The Proverbial Tone.
So I've been thinking a lot about tone, and how tone works in creating connection between people, and the role of tone in facilitating dialogue and ultimately getting things done. Does the squeaky wheel really get the grease? Well, yes, I guess, if the wheel is really crucial to getting from one place to another. But if the matter at hand is not deemed crucial, it's often said that it's easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar. Fun to look at the history and fallacy behind the proverbial squeaky wheel here. And here's a link to a entertaining discussion about the origins of the honey vs vinegar proverb.
Any proverbs and thoughts concerning tone you'd like to share?
Now I'm wishing I was able to edit my posts, but I see no way of doing that here 
@quietCloud22 Nope, no way for ordinary folk to do that here. If you make a terrible mistake you can ask a moderator to fix it.
Charlie
Okay, so here is an example I think of tone behaving badly. It's on a website that has some cute comics, and I like some of them. However this particular one is an example of tone clothed in a "means well" kind of message. It has to do with the idea of what is called the Backfire Effect, explained in detail here. Basically, the cartoon is based on the premise that people believe what they want to believe, and if you challenge them with facts, they melt down. I think the facts in this cartoon okay, but I have an issue with how the recipient of these facts is portrayed. What do you think?
@quietCloud22 I think it's an artists exaggerated interpretation of the heated feelings that go on inside the person, not necessarily a realistic allegation of how people actually behave in such situations.
Although some do, unfortunately, but most are able to still conform to societal rules even when they are being challenged in that way.
It's just harder, and they may have difficulties accepting difficult facts and learning from them.
(Btw. that comic is very US-centric, I must say that I didn't care in the least about many of the presented facts ... so I kind of didn't have the intended experience.)
@cloudySummer thanks for your thoughtful response, and I do agree it's US-centric, and the selection of facts seems to hint at a hidden contemporary American assumption/agenda. And I agree that it's true that people have conflicted feelings when confronted with a truth that they are uncomfortable with. And I did not like the cartoon - I found it to be condescending in a "bless your heart" American South kind of way (which is where I live 
).
I'm sensing a wall in this cartoon. For me, this cartoon gives the sense that the person on one side of the wall is savvy and armed with the facts, and person on the other side is someone incapable of processing a new viewpoint or reality - presented in that way, certainly you will get some "backfire effects" from people! The cartoon ends on a note of hope, "Yes, YOU can change!" with sparkles and rainbows going off in the brain. I'm wondering what the effect would be if the narrator and the protagonist started a dialogue recognizing some common ground between them, instead of just diving straightaway into "the facts"? I don't think the two birds on the branch together quite did it.
So while we're on the subject, here's another link, claiming that the backfire effect is mostly a myth. Whether the backfire effect is legitimate or not, still, more is to be gained to look at the WAY we approach difficult subjects with people. Thank you, Summer! I appreciate your comments!
@quietCloud22 I agree. This is bad.
The very first line, "You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you" is already manipulative. Although, as it happens it was correct—I didn't believe it 
The overall effect is to normalize bigotry: it's the fault of your amygdala and other structures in your brain.
The facts are not all good, either. Every time you see MRI mentioned in support of some theory, be very sceptical. Functional MRI (which this is) is very easy to get wrong or to fake. See: IgNobel Prize in Neuroscience: The dead salmon study
Charlie
@quietCloud22 Yes, with an election three weeks from now here in the UK, political walls are very evident, with all the professional wall-builders competing to build their walls so as to contain the most people. Like the game, Go, in a way.
In real life one of the big difficulties for political bridge builders is not even being able to see the other side, or that there is another side. This tendency for people to live in a political "bubble" affects both sides of the pond.
I listened to the wonderful music in your profile last night 
Thank you for the links!
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie Thank you for jumping in!
This cartoon was posted on Facebook by one of my good friends. She is committed to her community, she does good work, she is a science teacher. I wish I was more like her in most ways, but this I felt required a response, mainly because people could be sucked in by the cute little birds on the branch and then feel abused after reading it all and not know why.
So this is the scary thing: why are good people posting more and talking less to people? If I went over to my brother's house and approached him in this manner, "Hey, buddy, you are not going to believe this, but here's a bunch of facts that are going to boil your blood", he would pitch me out on the street.
I go to church and sing in a choir. I don't believe every scientifically-questionable thing that we stand and dutifully say every week, however I am a strong believer in sitting peacefully together in the same place and singing songs, and smiling and shaking hands afterwards, then maybe sharing some coffee, tea and snacks. This makes my world a nice place. 7cups could be this kind of place for people.
Charlie, thanks for listening to the music on my profile. I'm glad it made you feel good. Music is so important to me. When I sing in a choir, I know how wolves must feel all howling together.
I don't have a smartphone. When I did have one, I found myself checking about 100 times a day, at stoplights, in elevators, mealtimes, first thing when I woke up, right before bed and in the middle of the night. I finally said, ENOUGH!, and got myself a retro flip phone, which I can barely text on, much less compose and read emails, and I don't get notifications. I love my flip phone.
Sensitive to the fact that others also may find daily notifications annoying, even if they came from [insert name of great religious leader] him/herself, I promise not to communicate (trying not to "post") every day. I do miss the 35+ chatroom where you could just go hang out every day, middle of the night or every once in a while if you felt like it, and just be a person sitting with other persons.
So I'll do this and one other entry, then be quiet for awhile and let others try to find their voice in these clangorous forum halls. (Or this might be a good place to practice yodeling) 
@quietCloud22 I've been reading more on communication in today's political climate in this collection of recent essays: How Americans Talk About Politics Across Political Divides: And How We Can Do Better
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie where do you find these great websites! 
I was hoping to find resources like these that put a name to the kinds of ways we communicate. When someone is telling me something and alarm bells go off, and they say, "just the facts, man, the facts", I want to know what is really going on.
After watching the Netflix series World War II in Colour, I have one big takeaway, and that is DEATH. Unthinkably horrific enormous piles of heaping, rotting, stinking death. Death to our civilization, death to mankind, death to the planet. This really can happen, and almost did once before.
We must learn to talk to each other in civil tones. We must all sit down and share coffee and tea and snacks, then discuss frankly while listening hard to the issues at hand without demonizing the other behind their backs, then TRADE THINGS OF VALUE. I don't know how else it would be done!?
The Sandwich Theory of Communication
On this site the bread-meat-bread style of delivering constructive criticism is preferred, which is a way of presenting what we are doing wrong (meat) between the more easily-digestible what we are doing right (bread).
There are other more heinously-built sandwiches that deliver agenda-laden information. [insert mustaschioed emoticon]
There is the Flattery-Insult-Flattery Sandwich, which is popular in the South where I live (bless her heart).
There is the Dagwood sandwich, below, which is a way of layering so many truths and lies together that you end up eating the whole thing, dangerously not caring about the purity of the ingredients.
Can you think of other kinds of sandwiches by which people serve up their agendas?
@quietCloud22
I feel what you're saying about relating to people as a member. Personally, I feel like for myself, it's pretty cool to be able to share what I want to say and express my own thoughts/feelings without worrying that I am doing something improper or steamrolling over someone else's experience.
I have some difficulty connecting the type of empathy/listening I have in mind to politics, for a couple reasons:
1) There are limits to what I'm willing/able to empathize with before it becomes injurious to my own psychological health
2) There are limits to who I'm willing/able to empathize with based on whether they are capable of reciprocity and giving a similar type of empathy in return
The difference between my 7Cups listener account and real life is... my listener account is an anonymous/transitory persona. When I'm on here, I'm comfortable listening to a lot of things that I might adamantly disagree with, and morphing or mutating into whatever feels like it will work best situationally... because I know that I'm not stuck having to *continue* empathizing or connecting with those things indefinitely. It's a one-time conversation, and then when it's finished, I'm free to let go of those perspectives and return back to my own natural feelings, affirm my own sense of self again, and be all kinds of things that have absolutely nothing to do with anybody else's feelings.
Real life is different because I tend to be around the same few dozen people repeatedly, so acts of selflessness are much less practical. If you do something nice for other people, they tend to expect that to repeat itself in the future. Every time that I listen to or validate another person's perspective at the expense of expressing or identifying with my own, I am throwing myself under the bus a bit. And it rapidly becomes something unsustainable. (There's certainly a middle ground, but just want to express my own wariness of bridge-building in relation to the opposite extreme... of connecting with people so deeply or completely that your own self is annihilated in the process.)
I feel like there are some people who I simply don't get along with, and it's to my benefit and theirs that we just avoid one another and each do our own thing without getting in each other's way. They'll have their own community and I'll have mine, and I'm happy that lots of different communities exist.
Thanks for the interesting topics/thoughts and for what you're doing on here.
@frigidstars27 Thank you for pitching in! This forum business is relatively new to me - I'd much rather have an active conversation with someone. But, as stilted as the format is, it does give one an opportunity to organize one's thoughts and put down something more coherent, and hopefully relates to other people. Here are my preferences for interaction with people, rated 1 to 10 with 1 having the highest preference:
- Walking with someone, not saying much, taking in the scenery
- Having dinner with friends
- Singing in a choir
- Teaching a class (only sporadically)
- Talking and laughing too much at parties (and regretting it later!)
- Sitting in the 35+ chatroom with people who have formed long-term supportive relationships ANONYMOUSLY with other members and face serious challenges together (this I now experience on another server outside 7cups with the same anonymous people)
- Writing letters and emails
- Writing in a forum
- Texting
- Phone calls
I am a verified listener, however chats from the General Request queue fill me with fear. Listeners like you with the courage to face strangers are amazing and much needed.
And I agree that walls are necessary in some instances here and in your personal life. You have to protect yourself first before you can help someone else. Thank you for all you do. 
@quietCloud22
#1 sounds amazing--just a sort of shared presence and mutual experience.
General Request queue scares me too. :) I'm actually really curious what the alternative is to that. Is it to leave your status as "Online" and then wait for people you're compatible with to see/read your profile, feel some attraction to it, and send you personal requests? (And then change your status to either busy or offline so you don't get flooded with additional requests?)
@frigidstars27
Definitely a conversation needs to be had about the General Request queue. I don't know what the answer is, but some kind of procedure needs to be set up to screen out the trolls. If we are ostensibly not set up to handle emergency/suicide calls anyway, it seems like SOMETHING should be put in place to protect us! Maybe an appointment desk of some sort? Here is an instance where a wall (or a moat!) should be installed, then a bridge lowered when criteria for passage is met.
The Spelling Bridge
I love words, even though just the right word often escapes me at the moment most needed, but when I do think of a word that requires me using it, I usually look it up to make sure I've got the meaning and the spelling right.
This morning I have an 80 lb. brindle hound dog lying right next to me on my loveseat (aptly named when you have affectionate dogs crowding you off of it), with his head pushing heavily up against my side. It's very comforting to have him here and listen to his stentorious breathing. So I looked up "stentorious" here, and found that "stertorous" is the correct usage in this context. Never heard of that word - so has anyone else? If the correct word is never used by real people, should we start using it or should we change the dictionary? 
.
On the subject of walls and bridges a recent article at The Atlantic has three suggestions for improving social networks:
1. Reduce the frequency and intensity of public performance.
At 7 Cups I think this could mean hiding upvotes and hearts from public view.
2. Reduce the reach of unverified accounts.
At 7 Cups I think this could mean requiring participation in the community before anyone can post to public forums, and having many small group chats instead of a few big ones.
3. Reduce the contagiousness of low-quality information.
At 7 Cups I think this could mean preventing forum spam, and using artificial intelligence to moderate forums and group chats instead of the dumb word censor we have now.
See: Social Media is Warping Democracy
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie Thank you for your excellent ideas for 7cups! Hope the right person sees them.
I like the points made in the Atlantic article that you shared. Social media often inflames the flammable, torch-bearing throngs, and one could argue that we have no heroes left, only celebrities. However I still enjoy videos of animals and people hugging, flamenco flash mobs momentarily taking over Spanish banks, and parrots singing along with Pavarotti recordings.
I don't know if Democracy itself is warped, but throughout history there have always been enough people to take up the torch for any half-baked cause stoked by the press. I like the example of the Clingman/Mitchell controversy about whose Black Mountain peak was highest (from a distance ALL the peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains look about the same height). See the entertaining and fascinating but possibly obscure A History of Mt. Mitchell and the Black Mountains: Exploration, Development, and Preservation, 1985 by S. Kent Schwarzkopf (also more recent, Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains, 2003 by Timothy Silver, with a lot better prose and a more personal perspective).
* Clingman and Mitchell had a very public and antagonistic dispute in the mid-1800s about which peak in the Black Mountains (found in the Appalachians/Blue Ridge mountains east of the Mississippi). Clingman was correct about his peak being the highest, but Mitchell was more popular and ended up being buried on Clingman's mountain and the mountain was renamed Mt. Mitchell to honor him. Mitchell's peak was named Clingman's Dome.
Comparative mountain elevations:
- Mt. Mitchell - 6,683 ft.
- Clingman's Dome - 6,644 ft.
- Alps - 15,781 ft.
- Andes - 22,838 ft.
- Mt. Everest - 29,029 ft.
