Not An Image Problem, An Imagination Problem

In this post I was sarcastic in regards to objective truth. Please know that objective truth is different from an ethic. An ethic, by definition, admits of relativism. Stinks of it, just like my gym bag. But I digress.

Here is a snip from Metaphors We Live By:

Interpersonal Communication and Mutual Understanding

When people who are talking don't share the same culture, knowledge, values, and assumptions, mutual understanding can be especially difficult. Such understanding is possible through the negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might he like. You also need patience, a certain flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance for mistakes, as well as a talent for finding the right metaphor to communicate the relevant parts of un-shared experiences or to highlight the shared experiences while de-emphasizing the others.

Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experience. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all ex-tended conversations where understanding is important.

When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate un-shared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and skill and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.

Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the

evil when they are applied in-discriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves —disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUIT metaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products.

Following up on my Ben Yagoda readings, especially the one on Style, consider Metaphor again:

“Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experience.”

Imagination is important, and not just for artists, scientists need it too. Teachers need it too, and let’s not forget parents and children, and men and women and boys and girls and blacks and whites and Latinos and Russians (white & black – with and without vodka) and Germans and athletes and philosophers and pet whisperers and the guy at Lowe’s trying to help you with your electrical outlet problem that occurred when your wife knocked over the space heater.

You don’t have to be Harry Connick Jr. to know that with imagination, we’ll get there.