Rules For Good Communication – Both In Writing, and Verbally, and In The Arts (Along with core points on the philosophy of language, knowledge, perception, consciousness, ontology and epistemology, and the nature of being and reality – and lessons on how not to be long-winded!)

Here are a few thoughts on writing and verbal communication, and all forms of communication. As an author, writer, reader, lover of books, and philosopher, I believe I have some potentially helpful thoughts to share on the subject, though my own communications are not without faults themselves. I am no great orator, such as Martin Luther King Jr., nor am I Shakespeare, Dickens, or Dostoevsky. But I think there are some valuable points here, for any who may be interested. And since communication is something that we all do, and something which is essential to being human, then I would say that it is something that we should all be interested in – and something we should be interested in life-long pursuit of improving. Why stop our learning at See Spot Run – or the level of the newspapers and major media, which is scarcely higher?

Learning is for life. Communicating clearly, and effectively, and well, is important – in all areas of life; and it is something which we should all aim to continuously improve. Why not? It can only benefit us, never harm us.

Why sound like an idiot? Put another way, why should our reading, writing, communicating or thinking, our lives or our minds, be on a low level?

Moreover, if the purpose of communication is to communicate – and not to obfuscate, sow illusion, deceive, evade, create separation or division, or to increase or maintain or consolidate one’s power or ego status, which, sadly, it frequently is – then we should learn how to communicate: a) clearly; and b) effectively (which is something beyond mere clarity). This requires learning and skill development, which requires both time and also practice. We should not be afraid to admit that we are not yet omniscient, nor infallible. Hubris is not helpful; but a balance of confidence and humility are always to our advantage.

1. Rule number one of good communication is: There are no rules of good communication. Use whatever works. Sometimes holding up a flower is the best way to communicate. Sometimes a finger pointing, for example at the moon, is the best way to communicate. A genuine smile of genuine friendliness, compassion, respect, cheerfulness, reassurance, or warmth, may be the most effective form of communication possible – and generally is. Keep it simple, and do not be hide bound by rules or an excessive complexity.

Remember what my great Swiss aunt was fond of saying, “Complicated works too.”

2. Rule two: All communication based in language, concepts or words are symbolic, and hence dualistic in nature, comparing this to that; therefore, no words, language, concepts or texts are capable of conveying the nature of reality, which is non-dual. (See Shankara) The best physicists have begun to realize the sages were right: reality is non-dual – and 400 years of Cartesian dualism have been based upon nothing more than a shared delusion; a delusion now crumbling in light of recent science. We are thus confined by the very nature of language and conceptual, discursive thought, to the realm of images and appearances, not reality in itself. We are discussing shadows on the cave wall.

See Plato’s parable of the cave. Or read the first line of the Tao Te Ching: “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.” Read the Lankavatara Sutra: “All of the scriptures are like a finger pointing at the moon. If you mistake the finger for the moon, you will understand nothing.”

Language, words, texts, spoken and written communication, are not definitely not meaningless; nor do they capture or convey reality. They are tools of communication, and they are also tools of perception, knowledge and understanding. They are very valuable tools – but they are also profoundly limited tools. If you expect them to tell you what reality is, you are mistaken – they cannot. That, you will have to see for yourself.

And in order to see, you must first cut through all illusion. Therefore, the via negativa, as the Western mystic tradition  calls it, is the only possible avenue – if, that is, we are at all interested in reality (most people are not).

We must proceed by stripping away all illusions, until the naked truth stands self-evident. Language, words, concepts, texts, spoken and written words, can all be immeasurably helpful. But they cannot take us to the final destination.

They can bring us close enough to jump into the ocean. But we must decide to dive in. Standing on the shore is like reading the menu outside the restaurant door, and being content with that, thinking you have sated yourself fully, when in fact you have not tasted a single thing.

Use language, concepts and texts; but understand that they can never convey the fullness of experience, or even, the nature of reality itself.

3. As every good musician knows, you must first learn the rules before you can bend or break them. Rule three, therefore, is to disregard rule one (which, you will remember, said there are no rules).

We must learn to think in paradoxes. As Sun Tzu said, you should be able to use conventional means or unconventional means, and to shift between, and blend the two, as needed, as the situation calls for.

No, there are no rules. But do learn the rules; for while there are no strict or universal rules for good communication, there are certainly useful guidelines available. (You’re not going to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix or Andres Segovia if you don’t first learn a few chords, at least.)

There are times for either/or thinking, and there are times for both/and thinking. For example, “free” universal education, including unlimited higher education, along with universal public health care, and a universal basic income (as even Milton Friedman recommended, and is advocated by both the left and the right), along with a Green New Deal, which is to say, a bold infrastructure building project to transition our society to one that is not driving us over a cliff of self-destruction, and which, in the process, would create millions of jobs, and launch the economy out of the recession which it has been in since the economic crisis of began in 2007, are all affordable and achievable, separately or together, so long as we do the other things which must be done in any case, and urgently so, for reasons of social justice and the preservation of liberty and democracy, and the defeat of the neo-feudal corporatism, aka fascism, which we have now. If we tax the richest 1% and the biggest corporations, in terms of income and profits (at 90% and 40% top bracket rate, respectively, for example); and further, tax the wealth of the richest 1% and the fortune 500 corporations (at even 5% or 10%, much less what is both needed and justified, which is 90%); put a tax on currency speculation; and de-fund the military industrial complex and the global surveillance and police state apparatus; then there would be – excuse me…will be – more than enough money and real world resources available for these things, which every just society, or sane society, should consider basic necessities to its integrity as well as to its wisdom.

But while these things are both attainable and also urgently needed, for reasons of justice, democracy, freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and sheer survival, this is the case, and there are also bolder actions yet which are also urgently needed, and for the same urgent reasons: such as, serious anti-trust action to break up the big banks, along with the Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil, media and military industrial corporate empires. It is not an either/or scenario. We need the bold yet moderate actions described above – universal education and health care, UBI and a Green New Deal; and we need more radical action – such as breaking up the big banks, and making all central banks publicly owned and democratically controlled. Either/or thinking only harms us, and puts us into what Blake described so vividly and so well: “the mind-forged manacles”.

This is an injection of political philosophy into the philosophy of language and communication, yes. It is also a fact: yes, there are no hard and fast rules to good communication; and yes, there are rules, in the sense of general guidelines, which are quite helpful.

It is both/and, not either/or. Secular and religious fundamentalists, and others who prefer mental straight-jackets and prisons, to living, and thinking, in the real world, are overly fond of either/or thinking. It is either this or it is that. But that thinking, while sometimes useful, is seldom appropriate, and often confusing, misleading, or simply, delusional.

So, the short answer is, yes, there are rules, or guidelines, for good communication, be it verbal, written, or otherwise (art, music, dance, theatre, film or architecture, for example). We should learn them and use them. Then be certain not to be bound and gagged by them.

4. Don’t be a name-dropper or otherwise pretentious. Communication, if it is good, is both clear and also effective (moving, emotive, or persuasive, for example). Parading one’s ego is not only childish, is also taints the communication, making it less effective. Showing one’s social connections by dropping names, or showing one’s erudition or good training or education, by dropping names, that is, by being showy about the use of names, only shows immaturity and insecurity, lack of confidence and lack of self-dignity, a readiness to debase oneself and lick boots for ego gratification, praise, fame, career advancement, power, wealth, status, or some other personal gain. By showing a lack of integrity, maturity, confidence and also wisdom, or discernment, the effectiveness of the communication is thereby, always, damaged and undermined. As the I Ching says, “He who shows himself does not shine.”

5. The corollary is this. Don’t be afraid to use big words, uncommon words, quotations, allusions, references, personal stories or histories, when using them will enhance either the clarity or the effectiveness of the communication. To argue passionately for liberty and democracy while quoting Thomas Jefferson or Martin Luther King Jr. is not only acceptable, it is a matter of simple intelligence. You use whatever powers you have in order to communicate clearly and effectively. You don’t fend off barbarians at the gate by using your letter opener alone, thinking it modest and therefore best. You draw your sword, naturally, and use the best tools you can find at hand. If that means calling forth Daniel or Dumas, Dickens or Dostoevsky, then you do it, and without hesitation, of course.

6. Be concise, but do not be hide bound by concision.

Martin Heidegger spent 700 pages to tell us that the question of the nature of being is one that is worth asking. All he accomplished by that tome of utterly long-winded but hollow verbiage was to get his name listed in the pantheon of Western philosophers – by proving that he could be as much of an addle-minded windbag as the best of them, and that he had absolutely nothing of value to say.

Western philosophy has perfected the art of needlessly obscure, needlessly long-winded, needlessly difficult and cryptic writing. That is, in general, an unconscious habit arising due to: a) the need to conform to arbitrary and foolish norms which accomplish nothing, but do a disservice to the entire field; b) the need to conform to an academic fashion which likewise does more harm to the field than it does any good; c) the need to be perceived as writing something profound, and profoundly important, simply because the writer cannot write clearly or concisely, but, again, can only utter needlessly obscure and long-winded verbiage, as if the lower the quality and greater the length of the writing is proof of the importance of the thought – which of course, is absurd; and d) to hide the fact that the writer really has little or nothing of value to say. (And yes, there is that value word. Post-modernism is a revival of long-dead ancient Sophism, and should be treated as the rotting corpse that it is – and buried.)

Someone once said of physics, and it is generally true in most fields, though admittedly more difficult in some than others, that if you cannot express your ideas in ways that an intelligent lay person can understand, then you probably don’t understand your subject.

Keep it simple. Keep it short and concise – when and where appropriate, of course! Don’t be unnecessarily obscure. Don’t make a virtue out of being arcane or esoteric. Don’t fetishize jingo. (My good Lord how I hate that pervasive trait.) And don’t be long-winded. Use enough words – not too many, nor too few. And who decides that? You do, of course. Not convention. Not literary fashion. Not social custom. You.

If Western philosophy is renown for being needlessly obscure, arcane and long-winded, then the rest of Western culture (sic) is obsessed with speaking at an eigth-grade level, to match the general “dumbing-down” of the culture and the people, and obsessed with concision: to the point of reducing all thought and communication, with few exceptions, to the status of sound bites.

The modern journalistic style of writing and speaking has been useful, but it is far too bound by rules of concision (among other systemic problems which are even more dire in implications, such as nearly universal deceit) – and worse, the rule of concision for journalism has bled into the general culture, such that everyone feels they have to be hyper-concise at all times.

Few people read books anymore, and when they do, it is generally pop psychology or cookbooks, not philosophy or political-economy, for example. (There is nothing wrong with popular psychology books, in principle, nor with cookbooks. We should simply not limit our reading to that.) Attention spans had been shrunken to seven seconds, by the 1980’s. With the invention of cell phones, “smart phones”, texting, instant messages, emails, and “social media”, attention spans are now commonly at two seconds. A single long sentence loses most audiences now. But if people cannot concentrate for longer than two seconds, then nothing of significance can be communicated, or discussed, or even thought; and hence, we are doomed.

We must recover the ability to concentrate. That means that we cannot be afraid of long, in-depth conversations – that actually focus on something, or even several things, but not a thousand things, in an endless stream of hyperactive, scattered, unfocused sound-bites, which is now the norm. We (the people generally, that is) must learn again to read an entire book, and not just consume a never-ending stream of disjointed and largely superficial sound bites.

7. While we should not be pretentious or showy, we should also not “dumb it down”. If everyone speaks, writes or otherwise communicates at the lowest common denominator, we will find that no one is left who can speak, write, communicate, or think, beyond an eight grade level. If that happens, then, again, we are doomed.

We must refuse the impulse, or the implicit order, to dumb it down at all costs and at all times. We must refuse to write solely in short sentences, and short paragraphs, using small, commonly used words.

We must be willing to use long sentences, long paragraphs, and a vocabulary that goes beyond what is contained in See Spot Run. At least, some of us must continue to speak and write for adults.

Not all of us can follow the downward arc of a “civilization” in moral, spiritual, cultural and intellectual decline and decay, writing only for the infantile and the childish, as the mass narcissistic regression continues, and continues to accelerate.

Some few, at least, must stand strong, and remind us all that higher aspirations are still possible, and are never wasted, and not ever futile.

What goes down must also, sooner or later, go up again. Every collapse is followed by a rebirth – and a renaissance; assuming of course, we don’t annihilate ourselves, by, for example, refusing to rise above a childish and infantile, narcissistic culture of common and mutual degradation.

Choose your audience. Is it academia? Is it intellectual culture more broadly? Is it an intelligent, wide audience? Or is it more narrow than that? There is room for popularization, and that is not a style of writing or communication which should be disparaged. But not everyone must write for the collective of 8-12 year olds which our techno-entranced, hyper-disconnected, reality-avoidant, functionally illiterate, largely lobotomized, modern 21st century “culture” represents.

8. Use a dictionary – and a thesaurus; at least until the need diminishes to minimal use. Keep a hard copy next to you, or keep a browser tab open, of/with the Oxford dictionary, or the Oxford Canadian dictionary, or Miriam-Webster, if you prefer – and use it constantly, for decades, until you rarely need it, and can refer to it only occasionally.

Better yet, spend an hour here and there just reading the dictionary. Start with a word you have heard or read but may know only roughly. Then carry on. The more language you have, the more words you have, the more tools you have for both communication and also for understanding. Use them, expand the collection; then use the ever-enlarging collection, so they are retained and incorporated.

Don’t make the speaker or writer feel he or she has to dumb it down for you. Instead, rise up to his or her level. We are all equal in worth; but different in skill sets and knowledge. There is nothing wrong with that. And yet, there is no excuse for being lazy, either. We can learn for life, and we should.

9. If writing is important to you, or is something that you want to do, then you have to do it. If you say it’s important but you make no time for it, then clearly it’s not important at all. How you spend your time is your decision. Stop making excuses. If writing or communicating in one form or another is important to you – be it non-fiction books, essays or articles, novels, short stories, poems, or art, music, dance, theatre, film, or some other medium of communication – then you have to make it a priority. Don’t let your death bed be a place of sad regret. If something is important to you, do it now. Life is fleeting, and the hour of death is definitely uncertain. Do it now. Never hesitate, never rush. Make your priorities your priorities – not simply a set of routines that you do because you’ve drifted into them, or out of habit. Choose your life consciously and deliberately, and live it!

10. Immerse yourself in communication – especially good communication. That means, read voraciously. It also means, read the best books first. It means, read widely. It means, reflect on what you read. It means, see art, films, theatre, architecture, live music, dance. The more you immerse yourself in reading and literature, and in other forms of communication, the more you absorb of the means and methods of communication, as well as culture and understanding. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain!

JTR,
April 15, 2020