This is an archival thread where the article "Breaking the Code" is discussed

irene

This is great.
it's frustrating to have looped conversations that feel like a needle caught on a groove, and that to me is what happens when we rely on euphamisms and catch phrases to describe our experience, and code it. I am totally astounded by the power of language and it's ability to actually give us our experiece, and the use of slippery language is responsible for many covert actions of domination.

Basicly code is something that stands for something else, so breaking it relys on getting to that other stuff that it's covering up or standing for, and if we delve into these conversations the hope is that we will find a varied and unique richness that will expand and inform us in new ways. The point being not to listen and hear something else, but to really listen and hear.

i've noticed good ways to do this is to ask, "what do you mean by that? " what happened exactly?' "can you give an example?" "when where you experienceing that?" "what led up to that happening" It sounds elemntary but it's always shocking and helpful to me when someone asks me this and i realize that i've never reallly questioned what i'm saying or thinking about.
how have other people dismantled rhetoric?

I agree that when people use the word "acountability", they often mean "blame" as it is often used to assign responsibility for something. when i think of "accountable" i think of the person who's assigned or volunteers to take notes, and talk about them if questioned. Just because he's accounting, dosen't mean we can pin anything on him.
ok just rabling now.
Those who enjoyed this article should check out John Ralston Saul's book "The Doubters Companion: A Dictionary Of Aggresive Common Sense" which is a hillarious and deeply sitmulating, fierce cultural critique on words, institutions, and norms we use as code and take for granted. It's laid out like a dictionary, much like Dot's article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ralston_Saul

chrissaysdie123

Bad ass article Ariel, thanks.

Post

Nice piece.

I avoid working with anarchists who've gone to college because of how difficult it is to have an open conversation with them. I've had an easier time introducing anarchist theory to hostile capitalists than I've had dealing with anarchists who use academic left-speak.

And yes, I blame the code almost entirely on colleges. I'm not sure how appropriate that critique would be here, so I'll save it for later.

Irene, how do I deal with breaking down rhetoric? That depends on the situation. As I've said, I find it easier to convert hostile individuals to anarchy than to engage student anarchists in conversations. It takes much less time, and I find it much less infuriating. In situations where I simply have to engage with student anarchists and suicide isn't a viable option, I have a very simple procedure. I don't break their rhetoric down. I subvert it.

I'm patient, and I don't expect to get through to them in one conversation. I also know that most people don't consciously define the words they use. Take the Code. Unlike Dot Matrix, most anarchists aren't going to sit around defining these words. The words people use are defined through an organic and unconscious psychological process.

Consider the word love. What does it mean? Do you have an absolute definition of it that never changes? Very doubtful. When I ask you what love means, you have to go inside yourself and come up with a meaning. You look through all your personal experiences to pick a definition that represents that word. This process is called a transderivational search. And it's fascinating how it works.

Only dictionaries have static definitions - the way people define things are always changing, and someone who is skilled in human psychology can use that process to their advantage.

Now consider this:

Scenario 1 - You come home and catch your lover cheating on you with one of your best friends. I ask you to define love after this just happened.

Scenario 2 - You're in Mexico with your lover having the time of your life. I ask you to define love after you finish having a blissfully romantic experience.

You are not likely to give the same definition.

Now, combine transderivational searches with the psychological principle of commitment and consistency. Dr. Robert Cialdini showed years ago that people are more likely to behave consistently after they publicly commit to a position. The very act of defining a word publicly makes you much more likely to act in accordance with that definition. The more public commitments and definitions you make, the more apt you are to behave consistently with those definitions. Top that off with the principle of cognitive dissonance, and you have a very potent mindbomb.

Simply put:

1. People don't have absolute definitions. When you elicit a definition from a person, they have to search for it before they can give it to you.
2. The experiences they associate to a definition are primed by situational variables. By carefully altering these variables, you can affect the definition they give. My examples above were hardcore, but subtle situational variations are more effective.
3. The moment you get them to publicly give the definition you want them to give, they are much more likely to change their future behaviors so that it reflects the definition you had them give you.
4. The more they identify with this new definition, the more they'll want to justify it in order to avoid cognitive dissonance.

There's lots of other stuff I do, but that above process will pretty much break anyone down if you're patient enough.

Is it nice? Not at all. It's sad, because you realize how unconscious most people are. But it works, and if they're too irresponsible to think for themselves, than they deserve to be manipulated.

The reason I find it easier to convert capitalists to anarchy than talk with self-described anarchists is that I don't like using this process on people who already identify with anarchism. Anarchy is about personal responsibility, and if people already identify with a politics of personal responsibility, I'd much rather get through to them logically than to take advantage of their intellectual immaturity. However, in practice this rarely works out. People are loath to admit their mistakes - ultimately, humans aren't rational creatures, but emotional creatures. Anarchists are no different. And this is where my problem begins. I want anarchists to take responsibility for their thoughts - but they often refuse to, and act emotionally in the face of evidence that disagrees with their reality. This places me in a position I hate being in...

Either I persuade them by taking advantage of heuristic psychological processes they are unaware of, or I continue using logic in face of their increasing hostility. I despise using the former, and the latter infuriates.

In cases when people are open to logic and won't react emotionally to it, I follow a very simple model. I find out what information people are leaving out, what information people are generalizing, and what information people are distorting. There's twelve logical weak spots to look out for under the three categories of deletions, distortions, and generalizations. The model works very well and is very simple - much easier to grasp than the usual Aristotelian rhetorical skills your boyfriend was probably versed in. I've debated a few classically trained rhetoricians and I've held my own using this method.