I have pulled this up from the "Different languages" discussion because a member has been showing it to men and women and getting very different reactions. What do you make of it. If the woman asking a straigh-forward question and the man being evasive or is the woman being aggressive and the man trying to avoid an argument, or what?
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Risking the possibility we may become a mutual admiration team, I have to say Carol's clarity and precision in saying "Language is always embedded in a world. To some degree its effectiveness will always be dependent on the degree to which the communicants share the same experiential world" strikes me as also poetic. Thank you Carol!
And I do in fact agree with your final paragraph. From those who have studied communication we learn that communication is about 7% language. The rest of the 93% comprise a number of factors.
Certain basic differences make communication continually fraught. Some may make it exciting as well as challenging. Yet what are the alternatives?
Too much easefulness might just seem boring. Take two married couples: one agrees together on most things. They are loving and comfortable together. But after twenty years they are, quite frankly, bored and need something new in their lives. The other couple has lots of sparks, fights, differences, they challenge one another, they have disagreements. Lots of creativity comes out of this relationship. But after twenty years they are worn out. Each wants a bit of peace and quiet. Maybe the woman thinks she just wants to be held and cherished. And the man wants someone to adore him and stroke his ego.
But even more commonly relationships don't get this far. People are too different. There may be interest but not enough payoff. Creative flexible people may be willing to learn to tend each other's gardens but only up to a point. Some undefinable interest and curiosity still needs to be present. In a sense there needs to be both short term and long term payoff for the relationship to work. Sometimes it is just a matter of timing. Sometimes liaisons happen for the pursuing of mutual goals and these may endure a long time. As Charlene says we operate at different levels of intensity and most likely with different intentions if not different languages.
It isn't as though the process is random. It isn't at all. But it is as complex, in a way, as the whole universe.
I was quite taken by the Lacan quote about communication between men and women being impossible. I think from within the worldview circumscribable by language (particularly instrumental language) this must be true. I am going to propose that language is a kind of technique. As such it has strengths and weaknesses. Language is always embedded in a world. To some degree its effectiveness will always be dependent on the degree to which the communicants share the same experiential world. Humans use language to augment many other non-verbal ways of knowing. It in these non-verbal realms that the real connection must be established. No amount of abstract negotiation can possibly substitute for this. I am thinking of a parable that the rather eccentric Indian teacher Rajneesh/Osho used to teach. He used the phrase "the goose is out". He was referring more specifically to that phase change where the human has any level of realization. If men and women live in different experiential worlds there will be miscommunication always. I believe that, in most cases, where friendships do endure, there are overlaps and differences, and thus some combination of clarity and slippage; we will never have complete certainty or closure.
I can't help but think that, when it does work, as it seems to sometimes, language is an important conduit for something more ineffable. It can help us to stretch our experiences, it can augment, it can help us to learn and reflect and question, but it cannot work its magic if the other factors are not there.
Thanks.
Maitrisimha Kouwenhoven said:
As for Lacan, clarity sparkles from this article: "Even a man in love has flashes of pride, bursts of aggressiveness against the object of his love, because this love puts him in a position of incompleteness, of dependence. That’s why he can desire women he doesn’t love, so as to get back to the virile position he suspends when he loves." This sense of male incompleteness makes sense to me, when my partner withdraws it's often because he needs a moment to repair his sense of himself. He's become too weak in his own eyes. And actually I prefer that he does that.
When he does I have learned to do what Marie Louise Von Franz advised women in this situation to do: go to my own life, pay attention to what interests me and let him come back when he's ready.
Carol and everyone this discussion is provoking responses. I wonder if I am or we are searching for a single response to how all men and all women communicate. If so this won't work for me. I see us all as deeply unique...therefore wisdom comes with accepting one's different place as either male or female and looking for companions, conversations, experiences that jive with one. That doesn't mean not searching out what is different, perhaps in terms of a jazz experience when usually the tune is classical. It just means doing this consciously.
For instance when I express I have trampled in some men's gardens I am instantly made aware of the unity with each of those men. In other words, their gardens did not support my kind of intensity. We were, liking it or not, in union with each other. I learned from this after many years of learning to accept myself as an opinionated, willful, strong and stubborn woman, that I need males around me who can stand up to this, both for my sake and their. Likewise I realized as said above my outer sparks need to be defused when in closer contact. For other women, it may be they need men whose gardens require a more tender touch for long term contact.
This way of thinking, to accept each one of us is different and therefore the conversations possible will vary has helped me untangle some of my thoughts here.
Here is the URL of the article, I missed it in your reaction: http://www.lacan.com/symptom/?page_id=263
Maitrisimha has brought my attention to an interview with Jacques-Alain miller, a Lacanian, entitled "On Love". It contains many brief but pertinent observations relevant to this current discussion, including the following...
"dialogue from one sex to the other is impossible, as Lacan said with a sigh. People in love are in fact condemned to go on learning the other’s language indefinitely, groping around, seeking out the keys – keys that are always revocable. Love is a labyrinth of misunderstandings whose way out doesn’t exist."
The interview includes a number of other trenchant yet controversial points about love and relationships - certainly stimulating! The comments below the article reflect the whole range of possible response positions.
Charlene, your kind words made me cry. This discussion seemed quite theoretical when it began but it has become a bit personal for me now that I am digging a bit deeper. I see how important it is for me to be able to communicate well and to be heard and not misunderstood. Elja, you are certainly correct that not every misunderstanding is because of the differences between men and women. There all sorts of contexts where people of the same gender come into conflict. But there is a certain pattern in my experience. Something about the particular way I communicate as a woman triggers something in some men more commonly than it does in women... I don't know how common this is. There are men I have no trouble with at all, where communication is easy, and others with whom it is more difficult. As I write this I think I am starting to see a pattern... Hum...
I like your metaphor Carol; 'how to dress when you enter a man's garden'. In many situations, women are 'better' in communication about feelings and talking about what is happening in a relationship then men. Of course, this is a generalisation. So maybe it would be a good thing for us to reach out to men to learn more about the effect we have on them with our way of communication and to learn more about the way they communicate. We are all unique, also in our way of communication. Not every misunderstanding in communication is about the difference between men and women. Of course personal experience, history and personality create a certain chemistry between people. This is just as true between people of the same gender.
Carol English said:
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