Posted several times at one of my old blogs. Edited because all the other drafts sucked.
Think about the last time you tried to have a conversation about important things - especially one in which the other participant didn't agree with you. Several impediments to the transmission of and response to the verbally-expressed ideas likely occurred, coming from both parties.
1. One or both persons talks over each other.
2. One or both persons misrepresents what the other was trying to say more often than not, due to - again - preconceptions about the other person, the ideas being presented or both.
3. When disagreement is present, one person accuses the other of arguing, as if all arguing is bad and as if argument isn't a natural part of a conversation in which two people disagree on a topic.
A while back, Dennis Prager talked about this very topic: how to have a productive conversation in which the two participants were able to viably communicate. His observation was that a good communicator should speak no more than four sentences, and then allow the other person to respond to the ideas expressed in those sentences.
The reasoning behind this rule was that the ideas contained in four sentences are the maximum amount of information that an average person could remember to address without taking notes. (I would add a codicil to this rule: if one knows that an idea requires a long exposition - inherently, much more than four sentences - one should warn the listener of this fact beforehand, simply to find out whether the other party is willing to sit still for the speech/story.)
However, in most verbal exchanges of ideas, the extremes tend to occur. Either one party talks (filibusters) so long that the other party cannot address every issue because the latter is simply not able to file each issue into short-term memory. Or one party cuts the other off in mid-idea before all elements of that idea can be fully expressed and the former addresses what he/she thinks the latter means without having the full picture. Both conditions are frustrating, often infuriating and result in raised voices, harsh words, hurt feelings and often misconceptions about either or both persons involved in such a so-called conversation.
A third communication extreme is when a person is intent on taking everything the other says as an insult, responding in the perceived same manner and the second person has to spend the rest of the "conversation" saying "no, I didn't mean that, what I meant was … " and getting cut off again.
(Side note: I once suggested Prager’s communication courtesies to a person who was trying to dominate a conversation with me. The result? That person accused me of trying to dominate the conversation. This is proof that there is no perfect solution to any earthly problem. BIRM.)
I don't like to talk to people. I'm not a good conversationalist in that when I sense that the person doesn't really want to listen, I get nervous and begin to stutter and/or trip over my words. And most who don't want to listen will take advantage of that. Additionally, I tend to get angry when the other person doesn't listen - especially when he/she claims to know what I mean apart from things that I've actually said or demonstrated through my actions. When that happens, my voice tends to gain a few or many decibels. And, trust me, I can get loud.
Why does this subject mean so much to me?
Because being a good-faith participant in the art of communication is an act of love - all four forms of it.. However, the philia form of love figures into the others greatly: "getting on well with someone" or at least doing all one can to do so.
It's also known as respect.
Good-faith communication: that means that one assumes that the other participant is conveying an idea honestly and not out of malice.
I've been in situations in which I was trying to warn a person/persons of possible physical or situational hazards and was verbally torn to pieces - basically amounting to "don't tell me what to do!" - because of misinterpretations of the warning, twisting of my words and/or preconceived notions about how I thought. As a result, some of these people are no longer my friends. Others (relatives), I keep in a certain zone - the no-real-communication zone.
The more I listen to and read (vehement, illogical and/or mendacious) opposing responses to stated political and social views, the more I wonder why any of us keep plugging, especially those of us on the right. Communication impediments listed above abound. So why bother?
Then I remembered why I bothered in the first place; convincing others of my points of view was nice, but it wasn't the reason I started doing this. I started doing this for two reasons: to give factual and intellectual flesh to the things I had been thinking about and to do it without being interrupted; to put forth love: *good-faith* communication and to (mostly) get it back, whether the fellow communicator agrees or disagrees with my opinion on a given subject. I’ve even come to appreciate trolls; after all, what are trolls but good topical material? Plus they taste good with onions, carrots and garlic.
Any other benefit I receive from communication is gravy. Good topical material, indeed!
In the internet age, many times the actual target of your communication is not the commenter you’re directly addressing
But that is true in real life as well
I noticed that when I would get in public argument-- I knew I wasn’t trying to persuade the person I was directly opposing, but everybody listening in... and in the internet age, it’s not always clear who is listening
While I no longer post anything on FB or Twitter, back when I did it was almost always not for the benefit of the person I was having a disagreement with. For true believers on the Left, there is no changing their mind because their beliefs are grounded in faith rather than reason. It is a religion for them.
However, there are many, MANY folks who don't think much about politics and other important cultural issues until their own lives are affected. My arguments and points were to engage with those folks. To expose the absolute insanity of Leftism/Socialism/Communism and get them to thinking.