Dare To Inquire: The Dynamics of Insult    
 The Dynamics of Insult10 comments
picture4 Feb 2006 @ 05:33, by Bruce Kodish

[This section from my book, Dare to Inquire, seems relevant to the Danish Mohammed Cartoon controversy. By the way, Muslims ought to be free to express their opinion of disdain if they feel insulted. Or to not buy Danish cheese, etc. When they begin to threaten other people's property and lives then they ought to know that civilized people will oppose them. ]

The Dynamics of Insult

Richard Bandler and John Grinder, the originators of “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” (which they derived, in part, from their study of General Semantics) wrote: “The meaning of your communication is the response that you get. If you can notice that you are not getting what you want, change what you’re doing.”

This way of stating a potentially useful point leads to some problems relevant to issues of extensional (factually-oriented) communicating and responsibility. If people feel insulted by what I say they can claim, according to the statement above, that their feeling of insult ‘is’ the ‘meaning’ of my communication, for
which I––the speaker––am totally responsible.

This is indeed what fundamentalist Muslims (unfortunately not just a vocal minority in the Muslim world) claimed about novelist Salman Rushdie and his book, The Satanic Verses (and now, in Feb. 2006, claim about the Danish "Mohammed Cartoons").


In what may be the ultimate expression of ‘political correctness’, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the combined ‘spiritual’ leader of Shiite Muslims and secular ruler of Iran, issued a fatwa (a formal pronouncement of Islamic law by a religious
authority) on February 1989. The fatwa called for Rushdie’s death and a generous bounty was offered to any Muslim who would kill him. Rushdie, a British citizen, went into hiding under heavy security for a number of years. He has survived—so far (2006). Some of the translators of The Satanic Verses
did not.

Many Muslims approved of the fatwa. Some who did not nonetheless argued that the book ‘insulted’ their religion and that at the very least it should be banned or taken out of circulation. Was the ‘insult’ in the book? Did Rushdie have responsibility for the ‘insult’ that many Muslims experienced?

No one has ultimate responsibility for the ‘meanings’ another person makes. The ‘meanings’ of your (the sender’s) communication at a given date––that your listener derives––consist of the listener’s interpretation of your communication.
The ‘meanings’ that you (the receiver) give to what someone else has communicated consist of your interpretation––which may or may not have much similarity to what the sender intended. Both senders and receivers have responsibilities in the communication process if they want to find agreement (even agreement to disagree).

Both senders and receivers can change what they’re doing if they’re not getting what they want. For receivers, this can include asking “What do you mean?”, other methods for seeking further information, choosing to interpret the messages they receive differently, etc. For senders, this can include speaking/writing as clearly as possible and being graciously willing to rephrase their messages until adequate communication occurs.

This has important implications for the dynamics of insult, issues related to “political correctness,” etc. For example, although I do intend to challenge absolutist evaluating, I normally don’t intend to insult anyone, and work toward avoiding this. However, I cannot guarantee that some individuals will not feel upset, even insulted, by some of the things that I say in this book (Dare to Inquire) and elsewhere.

I take responsibility for communicating as clearly as I can to get my intended ‘meanings’ across. Beyond that, I deny having the responsibility for anyone else’s interpretations, including their feeling insulted.

Even if someone intends to insult you with something they say or do, you do not have to get insulted. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can insult you without your consent.” My colleague and friend Milton Dawes, who lives in Montreal, was once standing and waiting on a streetcorner there. Milton, born in Jamaica, has dark brown, chocolate-colored skin. A young ‘white’ man came up to him and asked him: “Are you a nigger?” Milton looked at him calmly and asked, “What do you mean?” The young man looked perplexed and asked:
“How come you don’t get upset like the others?” Milton replied: “I don’t think like that. I live on a higher plane.” The young man walked away, still looking perplexed.



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