Miscommunicating Communication

Finally Final Reflective Reflections.

I’m going to reflect on my experiences in my Communications class.

Image from PNGall.com Creative Commons Lisence

Started off well! Talked about communication in a personal sense, how you communicate with your friends and family and co-workers. Everyone got to share their experiences. It was a relaxed atmosphere and it was interesting listening to all the students who voiced their opinions. It was a late class and I like that a lot of the students were much older than the usual college crowd. ( Not that I didn’t like the younger students! )

Then we discussed symbols and their meanings. Very interesting discussion occurs around the #meToo movement and what it’s about. Then people talk about shows and reference some viral tweet. I feel left out because I don’t use social media or watch television. Left out in a sense that I don’t have anything to contribute to the discussion, but I still want my participation points – don’t want anyone telling me that I didn’t participate enough!

As weeks go by, we start discussing verbal communication – which I thought would be the majority of the class. I had this idea that somehow communication class will teach me some kind of powerful rhetorical tricks or persuasive techniques – but, we didn’t have any of that. Not that I’m upset, the next topic really spiked my interest.

What I was hoping I’d be able to do after taking a communications class.

Non-verbal communication is super cool. I ended up writing my midterm paper on paralinguistics (also known as vocalics) which is the changes in pitch and loudness of the thing being said. How you say it versus what you’re saying, basically.

Examples of non-verbal communication using body language. Image from OfficeVibe who wrote an extensive non-verbal communication article.

Then COVID-19 struck and all classes moved online. I have never had online classes before and discovered that I hate them with every fiber of my being. I also got fired and got a whole bunch of personal problems which affected my academic performance. Online classes were alright – it was me that was the problem.

Next we had a really good discussion on sex and gender. Since gender expression is a form of communication, and so much of communication is gendered, it was a great point of discussion. And, it would have been fantastic for me three or four years ago. But, at this point in my life I have already been exposed to these ideas so much that it was less of an eye-opening experience and more of a good review.

Finally we discussed organizational communication. This, along with the non-verbal communication section, was the most interesting part of the course for me. I never thought about how information doesn’t just move from the top to the bottom – with bosses and manager issuing marching orders to the rest of the staff. But, communication can come from the bottom up or even go laterally from peer to peer.

The beauty of attending a liberal arts college is that at the end of it you aren’t just skilled in your particular field, but, hopefully, you have picked up a well rounded education that makes you capable in many areas. Nobody wants to work with that one awkward guy who, while being very good at his specific job, can’t write a well worded e-mail or communicate well with his peers.

So there are certain classes that I recommend everyone, regardless of their major, takes. Classes that teach meta-skills – skills that will help with any job or major that a person can end up with. Philosophy and Psychology intro classes are absolutely there, and I think that into to Communications class also deserves a place up on that list of classes that I recommend to everyone.

No matter what you do, you’re gonna have to communicate with others.

We’re All Doomed.

Fake News is a hot topic recently (the past five or so years?). Other terms I would use include misinformation and propaganda.

This stuff has been around ever since we’ve had our earliest version of mass media – the printing press. Back in 1835, in a New York newspaper called The Sun, they published a huge hoax about discovering alien wildlife on the mood. It’s referred to as the Great Moon Hoax in a contemporary setting. But, at the time people didn’t know that it was a hoax and genuinely believed that life has been discovered on the moon. Some writer just though, “I bet I can tell these people that there’s a civilization of bat-human hybrids living on the moon and they’d believe me!” And, believe him they did.

Depiction of the bat-people supposedly living on the moon. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Similar thing also happened in 1938, although this time accidentally and via the power of radio. The CBS radio network began broadcasting a radio drama based on H.G. Well’s novel War of the Worlds, which features a martian invasion of earth. The show was structured like a real radio broadcast, but the broadcasters would mention odd things like flashing lights sighted on Mars or strange metal cylindrical objects falling from the sky. Eventually, the broadcast turned into a reporting of a hypothetical martian invasion of earth.

It was stated in the beginning of the broadcast that the following is a work of fiction. But, not everyone got the message and this resulted in a panic. The radio station was stormed by policemen and the broadcasters were ordered to notify all listeners again that the show was a production. Despite best efforts there was a nationwide panic over people fearing that a real martian invasion was happening.

I myself fall victim to this type of misinformation. My previous post was about the representation of Islamic freedom fighters in American media. I wrote that entire post with a certain part of Rambo 3 in mind – the ending credits. The ending credits that originally said “This film is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan.” but, was allegedly later change to, “This film is dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan.”

The supposed original on bottom and the edited version on the top.

Those two endings were the perfect representation of changing attitudes in American culture towards Islamic freedom fighters. But, after writing my entry, I did research on this and it turns out that, despite the internet all claiming this to be true, I could not find any evidence that the original film contained the dedication to the Mujaheddin. I fell for the FAKE NEWS. (and, was forced to cut and severely edit my last entry.)

There’s website called This Person Does Not Exist which will generate a computer generated image of a person every time you refresh. There is a game called AI Dungeon which will generate a random text adventure for your based on your inputs. We have deepfake images and video and voices. We have botnets that control millions of social media accounts that all talk and advertise to each other.

Randomly generated portrait created with thispersondoesnotexist.com.

What happens when this technology becomes more sophisticated and readily available? How is your average person supposed to be able to defend themselves against this? Well, they can’t, and we’re all doomed.

Fermi’s Paradox basically states that the Universe is vast and old, and so we should have been visited by aliens by this point, but we haven’t met any other intelligent lifeforms, why is this? There are many answers to this question – one hypothetical answer is that the nature of intelligent life is to destroy itself. And, it’s easy to imagine – a nuclear war, a bio-weapon let lose, man-caused climate change or some rogue A.I. killing us all.

But, I don’t think we should discount the possibility that what will kill us all is mass misinformation. Lies created so quickly and cleverly that nobody can determine what is or what isn’t true anymore. No intelligent entity can exist if it cannot make any type of statement, or declare any type of fact about reality, that is true.

Enemy of my Enemy.

There’s a special place in my heart for 1980s and 1990s American blockbuster cinema. The film where a brawny muscular hero saves the day and kills all the bad guys while exemplifying all the positive attributes that America values. I will never get tired of these films, and while I understand that they’re a product of a different time and have a myriad of problematic things about them, I will always cherish them.

In those times, the Soviet Union was the antithesis of everything America. America needed a bad-guy and the Soviet Union was it. The entire country could rally against this evil foreign entity that was slowly (seemingly) taking hold of the world one country at a time – creeping ever closer.

Finally, when the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan asked the Soviet Union for assistance and the Soviets moved in their 40th Army, the American government has had enough. In Operation Cyclone they funded, supplied and trained a multinational organization of brave Islamic freedom fighters known as the Mujaheddin – which is another term for Jihadists.

Rambo 3 featuring Sylvester Stallone’s character Rambo riding with the film’s depiction of Mujaheddin.

Sylvester Stallone joined in to help the Islamist Mujaheddin in the movie Rambo 3. In the movie, his friend goes to train the Mujaheddin forces, and is captured by the Soviets. The Soviets hold him prisoner and interrogate his friend. Rambo goes off on his quest to infiltrate the Soviet compound and free his friend from the clutches of the evil Soviets.

The Mujaheddin were shown in a positive light in various parts of American cinema. For example, the James Bond film “The Living Daylights” features Mr. Bond gaining help from the Mujaheddin and assisting them in order to defeat the evil KGB agent General Georgi Koskov. Islamist freedom fighters were seen in a positive light in American media.

The Living Daylight’s positive depiction of Mujaheddin.

However, after the September 11th attacks American’s view changed on Islamist Freedom Fighters. All of a sudden, these people, that were there to help the American good guys fight against the foreign bag guys, became the bad guys. Using bombs to blow up imperialist Soviets was good in The Living Daylight, but using bombs to kill imperialist Americans was a deal breaker.

Iron-Man’s Ten Rings organization which is based on various Islamic Freedom Fighter groups.

Rambo 3 was released in 1988. In Metal Gear Solid V, a Japanese video game released in 2015, our brave American hero also interferes in the Soviet-Afghan War. The hero named Snake finds out that his friend went to Afghanistan in order to train Mujaheddin fighters. But, Snake’s friend is captured by the Soviets and is being interrogated! Snake must infiltrate the Soviet compound and free his friend from the clutches of the evil Soviets.

Metal Gear Solid V’s protagonist Snake attacking a Soviet soldier.

Sounds a bit familiar despite the 27 year difference. Maybe the Japanese didn’t get the memo.

Kitchen Nightmares – The Hundred Year War Revisited.

Going to take a look at some television and write about the relationship and communication between the characters.

Time for self disclosure! I haven’t had a television in over a decade and generally I don’t care about television. As a result, I rarely watch any. I decided to head over to crackle.com and watch an episode of the drama/reality Television called Kitchen Nightmares – starring British Celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay.

This episode of Kitchen Nightmares can be viewed here.

Gordon Ramsey is sent to California to help out a struggling restaurant called The Secret Garden. The owner, and head chef, of the restaurant is a Frenchman named Michel Bardavid.

Mr Ramsey examining the dirty glass he was provided with.

The restaurant if ugly and filthy. The front entrance does not work. The menu is bizarre – one of the dishes included garlic shrimp with strawberries. Worst of all the food was cold and not very good according to the celebrity chef. But, I’m sure he’s playing it up for the cameras.

The two chefs confronting each other. Notice the use of gestures by Gordon. Swinging your arms makes you an effective communicator.

Gordon is hostile to Michel. If I had to venture a guess it would be because Gordon is a competent chef and Michel’s take on the culinary arts offends him as a professional. Gordon begins telling Michel all the things that he thinks are going wrong with the restaurant. And, Michel does not take the criticism well.

Michel was having trouble with his attempt to strangulate Gordon. So Gordon, being a good sport, leans in to make it easier for Michel.

Michel definitely feels hostility towards Gordon. Not just because Gordon dared to criticize Michel’s cooking and restaurant, but also because Michel feels threatened by other chefs being more competent than him. He clearly takes pride in his cooking and culinary “skills” and brags about his past successes as a chef. I think that pride is what makes Michel so delusional when being confronted by his failures with this restaurant.

One line perfectly describes this delusion, “My restaurant is doing better than this asshole over there!” The “asshole over there” is Gordon Ramsay – the chef who has received more than sixteen Michelin Stars in his restaurants. And, who has been running a three Michelin star restaurant for almost 20 years. Meanwhile, Michel, the man who uttered such words at Gordon Ramsey, is admittedly $300,000 in debt and needs help bad enough he’s willing to sign up for a reality TV show and basically be laughed at by a national audience.

A very friendly and polite chat between two fellow chefs.

Not that Gordon Ramsay doesn’t deserve some hostility. There are ways to criticize in a productive manner and then there’s calling the other chef as “French Fat Pig”. Which, I think, is taking things quite a bit too far. Fat shaming is already a huge issue in our society – and, pigs are highly intelligent animals.

Average reaction to a sixty second interaction with Mr. Ramsay.

If I was one of the characters on this episode I’d be the poor waitress bawling her eyes out. The cooks weren’t doing a good job, mostly as a result of Michel, and the front of house got chewed out by angry customers. I don’t handle conflict well either so I really feel for her. Hang in there!

That being said. I see myself in all these people. Sometimes I’m as prideful and stubborn (and delusional) as Michel. Sometimes I’m as snobbish and aggressive as Gordon. And, sometimes I’m the sous-chef who actually stepped up and got stuff done when Michel stepped away.

Who would think that the entire spectrum of human experience would be out on display in a reality TV show about cooking.

Company Conflict Confusion

I’m gonna look at how two different companies handled an issue and compare their actions. The two companies I will be comparing are Amazon and Walmart. The issue at hand will be the unionization of their workers. Amazon has been experiencing criticism over it’s actions recently – and Walmart is notoriously one of, if not the, most anti-union company in America.

Unions and workers protesting together for higher wages (2015) – Wikipedia

Amazon has been actively engaging in anti-union activity. In 2018 there was a leak of an internal training video that featured a heavy anti-union message. The video didn’t just paint unions in an extremely negative way, but they also encouraged their workers to spy on one another and report any union-activity to the higher ups. Kinda like the Stasi encouraged citizens of East Germany to spy on their neighbors, and rewarded them for alerting the authorities of any anti-communist activities. Amazon, in a similarly authoritarian manner, encourages workers turning on each other.

Despite this, Amazon did increase their minimum wage to $15 nationwide years ago. Amazon also pays for their employees education, 95% of the tuition up to $12,000, if they’re studying in the fields of IT & Computer Science, Transportation, Healthcare, and Mechanical & Skilled Trades. These are the types of behaviors are there to dis-empower pro-union movements. After all, employees won’t want to organize and pay union fees for a union when they’re happy with their work already, and their needs are met.

Amazon.fr fulfillment center LIL1 in Lauwin-Planque, France – Wikipedia

Walmart, on the other hand, just straight up HATES unions. They even get a sniff of any type of union activity and they strike with a fury that hasn’t been seen since the second world war. For example, in the year 2000, seven dudes working in the meat cutting department of Walmart decided to unionize. Days later Walmart took the entire meat cutting section and shut it down. Not just for the Walmart with those seven guys, but in ALL Walmarts. They got a scent of union activity and just shut down and entire section of their business and replaced it with machines as a sign of pure dominance over their workers. Badass.

Or the dude who worked in Walmart for 14 years, and then as soon as he started associating with OurWalmart, a pro-union organization, Walmart found an excuse and fired him.

Absolutely brutal. And, while I have great respect for the zero prisoners approach that Walmart takes, I can’t help but think that Amazon’s approach is wiser. Give your enemy what they want – if they want higher wagers or better healthcare just let them have it (as long as that still leaves you in the green). If, that stops unions or protests, and in general increases productivity, then it’s smart even from a business perspective – which is the only perspective companies care about.

Plus, think of all the great PR! Think of all the tweets your public relations managers will get to make in regards to how much better your company is! I don’t think that translates to greater sales, but you’ll finally be able to style on that snarky Wendy’s account.

Cheers!

Verbal Communication in a Digital Age.

Imagine you’re online and you’re reading a sentence aNd 1t sl0wly DeVoLves 1nt0 th1s unr34d4bl3 m3sS. This was the state of a lot of imageboards and forums in the early 2000’s due to the proliferation of a trend known at the time as 1337sp34k. It’s basically the replacement of certain letters with appropriate numbers and symbols. In addition the changed ending of certain words – so, words like “winner” became “W1nNRar” and “hacker” became “H4xz0rz”.

Thankfully, the leetspeak trend was quickly replaced by a less foreign type of verbal communication. ppl strted 2 type lik dis becuz they devlped a shrthand frm typng wit phones.

Back in the olden days, phones didn’t have keyboards on them, unless you were a rich Wall Street type with a BlackBerry. Most phones were equipped with a number pad and you were supposed to use dark wizardry in order to turn the numbers into words. As a result, most people cut out the vowels from their texting, along with using shorthand like “2” instead of “to”/”too”, or “2mrrw” instead of “tomorrow”. Users were charged per message, so they had a financial incentive to cram as much as possible in each message they sent – and boy, were they charged. When these users got online and logged into their favorite website or chat client, this habit carried over and spread like wildfire across the internet.

Standard Numerical Keypad found on most phones. (Wikipedia)

But, then came Steve Jobs with his iPhone and delivered us from this text message hell. Finally! We have smartphones! So, everyone has a full-sized QWERTY keyboard at their disposal. Surely this will lead us into an age of beautifully typed, grammatically correct, English language on the internet. Except, CAN I HAZ CHEEZBURGR? O RLY? YA RLY! DESU DESU DESU >implying implications costanza.jpg OK BOOMER! the meme culture of the internet sabotaged the verbal communication style of hundreds of million of impressionable teenagers and young adults – and continues its dark work to this day.

Official Product – Gorilla Munch Cereal than became an internet meme. They have since changed the art.

Unfortunately, meme culture took over the internet. Memes could be anything including videos, photos, and websites. Originally, this meme culture mostly existed on certain websites, imageboards, and forums, but eventually memes made their way into mainstream websites like mySpace and Facebook. Ever since, these types of in-jokes have dominated a large segment of online interactions. If you’re not familiar with the particular meme that an individual is referencing then you are unable to engage with them in discourse. And, the way these memes are referenced to is antithetical to proper English sentence structure, usually.

Nobody knows what the future will hold for verbal communication taking place on the internet. Perhaps the rise of popular Korean culture will cause people to incorporate some terminology from that country. Or, maybe the MTA will become a big hit and we’ll have slang related to subways and buses become mainstream. Either way, before it happens on television of with the people on the street, it will happen on the internet.

Symbolism of Soviet-Socialism

“Discuss the history of a social movement that fascinates you, discuss the symbolism, media reporting of the social movement, political forces around it, and the future of the movement, if it is still ongoing.”

That’s my assignment for this blog entry, and it’s perfect because I’m currently reading October, by China Miéville. The book, as you have probably guessed, is about the Soviet-Socialist revolutions that took place in early 20th century Russian Empire.

The three big symbols of Soviet-Socialism for me would have to be: the the weird sickle and wheat imagery; the odd hammers and gears that represent the workers; and the big red star.

The above state emblem of the Soviet Union has all three symbols.

In the book, October, the author mentions a struggle that the early pro-revolutionary leaders had. According to Marxist theory, a nation has to transitions from a despotic monarchy and into a capitalist society before becoming a socialist state. Tsarist Russia was not even a capitalist nation, and it didn’t have a working class for the revolutionaries to radicalize and overthrow the government with. They had recently freed slaves who didn’t understand the grand ideas that the revolutionaries tried to peddle. I suspect this is the reason for the inclusion of the sickle and wheat symbolism – to entice the peasantry to join the revolutionary cause.

The hammer is the most straightforward symbol – it’s the working class. While nowadays a symbol of the working class might be a cash-register, or a computer, or a car. In the early 20th century eastern Europe the working class worked with hammers, and pliers, and calipers and all manner of other industrial age equipment.

Finally, the red star. Wikipedia holds several theories about what the red star exactly means and how it came to be. Their theories include the stars being used to distinguish local Moscovite solders from the one returning from WW1, and Trotsky being influenced by the green star of Esperanto. Another blogger, by the name of heartinaheartlessworld, claims that the red star originated by a Russian science fiction novel by the same name. Russian Wikipedia article claims that the red star symbol was used by military forces of Tsarist Russia before the revolution.

Photo taken in 1905, before the revolution, of Russian Empire soldiers. Star symbol depicted in the top right.

These symbols are banned in several countries around the world, and in many others they offend and upset the general public. Regardless of how anyone might feel about the Soviet-Socialist republics and their policies, their symbols are immediately recognizable, even in the 21st century, and serve as an insight into the ideals of the movement from which they spawned.

Happiness is Being Understood

I signed up for a communications class. And, four other classes. And, I’m working. I’m overwhelmed. Thankfully, communication is one of those meta-skills that magically helps with everything else in your life. Just like meditations, or philosophy, or joining a multi-level marketing scheme.

So, what would I like to learn from communications class?

I need to communicate better with my boss. She’s completely different from me in every aspect except that neither one of us is scared of engaging in verbal conflict. I take the bait too often. Maybe this class will make me watch my tongue more than I do. But, I’m not sure if I would want that. There’s an article I read about how conflict in the workplace is actually a good thing. Not sure if I believe that because of the article, or if I read the article because I believe that.

https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0517/pages/why-workplace-conflict-can-be-healthy.aspx

I have always been really laid back and relaxed, but recent arguments have made me realize that I like arguing. And, I don’t like that.

I’d also like to be able to connect with people who are different from me. It’s super easy to totally hit it off with someone who’s of a similar age, and has similar interests, and who’s lived experience is similar to mine. But once I start talking to people from drastically different background and experiences there’s a distance; A gap that I don’t know how to bridge. I don’t mind the gap, and perhaps it’s a good thing that it’s there. Maybe there’s a good reason for it to exist, but if there’s a way to mend it I would benefit from that.

Most importantly I’d like to learn how to get an ‘A’ and maintain my sweet GPA.