A situation or a state of confusion can be defined as the counter image of communication, it is a faulty communication that leaves the receiver in a state of confusion or misunderstanding. This is especially true of our interhuman relationships where a maximum degree of understanding and a minimum degree of confusion is important.
Traduttore, Traditore
It is necessary to translate the meaning and significance of one thing from one language to another. We are not referring here to translation errors or low-quality translations. Greater importance is the type of linguistic confusion caused by the different meaning of the words phonetically the same or similar
Donkey in Italian means butter
The confusion of languages is not limited to human communication, Karl Von Fisch has shown that bees use extremely complex corporeal language to communicate with their fellow humans, as well as observing that Austrian and Italian bee species can cross, coexist and collaborate peacefully, but speak different dialects.
From this example we see that ascribing a certain meaning to a specific signal causes confusion if this ascription is not recognized by all who use the signal, unless the different meanings of one language can be translated with complete accuracy.
Human beings use not only words, but also body movements. The modes of behavior of the same culture as a means of verbal communication are infinite. Consequence of the fact of having grown, formed and socialized within a specific cultural, family, etc.
A translator in the proper sense of the word must know much more than the language he translates. On the other hand, even the best translation involves a loss, perhaps of objective information, but if of those qualities so difficult to define that they constitute the essence of a language, its beauty and its world.
Traducttore, Tradittore, as Roman Jacobson observed "the translator is a traitor" that is to say the translation would be correct but it would be a thousand languages from its original meaning.
Different languages are not something like different denominations of a thing, they are versions and perceptions of the same thing.
The translator or interpreter who only knows the languages, but not the language of ideologies, drifts, irreversibly lost.
The interpreter has an important position that places him in a position of power
The commander of an Austrian detachment had been ordered to retaliate against an Albanian people. Fortunately, none of the soldiers knew Albanian, and neither did the villagers know another language. At last he was able to find an interpreter, a man endowed with that rich knowledge of human nature. This man did not correctly translate almost a single sentence of the long negotiations, he told each party only what he wanted to hear or was willing to accept, he slipped in here a slight threat, until finally each side considered that the other was so reasonable and attentive that punitive action was deemed out of place.
But the crucial question is: When was the situation more confusing and pathological, before or after intervening?
Paradoxes
Information can have very different meanings for the sender and the recipient, the confusion is not the result of a faulty transmission process, but is already embedded in the very structure of the transmitted message.
There is a scheme that is repeated too frequently in families with clinical disturbances. Three variants of the theme can be distinguished:
- When someone sees that their perceptions of reality or the way they consider themselves, they are repressed by other people of vital importance (for example, a child with respect to a father), they will finally feel inclined to trust their own instincts. And since you are always being hinted that you are not right, it will be increasingly difficult for you to find your exact position in this world. In his confusion he will be tempted to search in an increasingly deviant and eccentric way for those meanings and that order of reality that are apparently so evident to others. This behavior responds to the clinical picture of schizophrenia.This dilemma begins with great frequency when parents start from the assumption that a well-educated child should be a happy and playful child and the most insignificant and passing moments of sadness for their child as a silent accusation of failure of their educational work, that is to say They deny the boy negative feelings. Eg After everything we do for you you should feel happy. The behavior that the child adopts consequently responds to the clinical picture of depression. Those who receive from other people norms of behavior that demand and at the same time make certain actions impossible find themselves in a paradoxical situation “do what I tell you not what I would like you to do " The behavior resulting from this contradiction very often responds to the social definition of moral helplessnessThe behavior resulting from this contradiction very often responds to the social definition of moral helplessnessThe behavior resulting from this contradiction very often responds to the social definition of moral helplessnessAfter all we do for you, you should be happy. The behavior that the child adopts consequently responds to the clinical picture of depression. Those who receive from other people norms of behavior that demand and at the same time make certain actions impossible find themselves in a paradoxical situation “do what I tell you not what I would like you to do " The behavior resulting from this contradiction very often responds to the social definition of moral helplessnessAfter all we do for you, you should be happy. The behavior that the child adopts consequently responds to the clinical picture of depression. Those who receive from other people norms of behavior that demand and at the same time make certain actions impossible find themselves in a paradoxical situation “do what I tell you not what I would like you to do " The behavior resulting from this contradiction very often responds to the social definition of moral helplessnessThe behavior resulting from this contradiction very often responds to the social definition of moral helplessnessThe behavior resulting from this contradiction very often responds to the social definition of moral helplessness
But there is still a fourth variant of this fundamental theme that is actually the most frequent, this one that we could call paradoxes of imposed spontaneity. A typical example of this communication is the case of the woman who suggests that her husband bring her flowers from time to time. As most likely she has been longing for this small display of affection for a long time. By expressing this desire, she has forever eliminated the possibility of seeing it fulfilled: if her husband ignores it, she will feel even less loved, and if he satisfies her, it will not make her happier, because she does not bring flowers on her own initiative but because of that she asked him to.
Paradoxes arise everywhere, they operate in all imaginable fields of human relations and exert a considerable and permanent influence on our perception of reality. Concepts such as spontaneity, trust, power.
Power breeds paradoxes and double bonds, Power tends to corrupt begins by saying the famous aphorism of Lora Acto, and for being bad it must be avoided. In our days naturally good men on an individual level could degenerate into a dark and evil power, responsible for oppression, psychic illnesses, suicide, divorces. etc.
We will analyze this paradox in a more specific area, so for example no one can be forced to participate in group therapy sessions. But refusing to participate demonstrates that the patient is unable to understand for himself what is in his best interest and make an appropriate decision. The solution to the case would be to reassure the patient over and over that there is no obligation to participate in the group sessions, and then ask him why he does not attend voluntarily.
The motto of equality between all is absurd for the simple fact that all help creates a power structure between the helper and the helper.
A similar paradox in its structure appears in a military situation described in Joseph Heller's novel
The reality of war or any other reality supported by a totally totalitarian power, is dominated by an insane factor from which nothing and no one can avoid, in any case human values and the laws of communication and the darkness of confusion plummets over victims and executioners alike.
The advantages of confusion
Let's imagine the following situation. She entered a room and everyone present laughed out loud. The cast leaves me very perplexed, because either they view the situation from a totally different perspective or they have information that I lack. My immediate reaction will be to look for the cause or the reason for their laughter, therefore I will turn to my back to know if someone is gesturing or I will look in the mirror to find out if I have spots on my face or I will ask why They laugh.
So after an initial stoppage, any state of confusion triggers a reaction to search for causes or motives that clarify the situation.
Two cases follow: first, if the search does not work, the field is extended to all imaginable and unimaginable connections. Second, in a state of confusion there is a strong tendency to cling to the first concrete explanation that you think you perceive through the fog of confusion.
In confusing situations, everyone makes use of the first apparently saving cable, that is, of the first concrete point of support, and attributes a higher importance and value to it. It is clear that these suggestions can not only have negative consequences, but also positive ones, since we are capable of certain unsuspected decisions and reactions of great complexity.
The clever Hans
The year 1904 shook the scientific circles of Europe, the possibility of understanding between man and animal. The animal was Hans, an 8-year-old stallion whose owner was a retired master Von Osten. With unlimited faith Von Osten had taught not only arithmetic, but also to tell the time on the clock, to recognize people by their photographs, etc., His abilities were subjected to strictly scientific tests, brilliantly overcoming all obstacles
But on December 9, 1904 Pfluger published a second report where it was discovered that the horse does not give the correct answers when no one present knows the answer. Therefore, the horse does not know how to count, read or calculate. He also failed when they put blinders on that prevented him from seeing.
During a slow learning process, the horse learned to perceive more and more accurately the small bodily changes that the teacher unconsciously associates with the results of his own mind and to convert them into indicative signs of response.
Pfluger managed to notice Von Osten's different movement changes that were the starting point for the horse's responses
The Trauma of Smart Hans
Hediger concludes this trauma with the following words: Avoid at all costs the error of the intelligent Hans, suppressing with absolute rigor all animal-man contact in animal psychology experiments, managing not only to ignore the fantastic ability of the animal to correctly perceive and interpret the smaller muscle movements, but also the fact that we human beings are constantly emitting seniles that we are unaware of and over which we have no influence.
Subtle influences
Rosenthal also investigated the effects of unconscious or intentional but indirect influence on people subject to experimentation.
He showed them a series of photos of unknown people and asked them, based on the general impression that the photos produced, to determine on a scale the professional or social career of the people. The photos came from illustrated magazines, through a large number of previous investigations had given a neutral average value.
The authentic tests were entrusted to different experimenters and each of them was judged a predetermined value in the mentioned scale. The mission of these experimenters was to indirectly influence the test subjects to induce them to choose the value that the experimenters themselves were assigned.
The experiments were filmed and then the film was shown to a large number of observers who knew the objective of the experiment, but not the value that each experimenter should induce to the people placed under his direction. It was therefore a test on the first test (the filmed) and the observers were assigned the mission of guessing on the basis of the impressions obtained through the film, the value that experimentation had tried to suggest to the subjects of the first test. Rosenthal found that the observers' estimates of the film offered high rates of approximation.
So not only animals, but also we are subject to influences of which we are not aware, and about which we can not take conscious attitudes.
Eckhar Hess comments that the dilation of the pupils when reading a book does not depend only on the intensity of the light received, but also on factors linked to feeling, he was able to verify, among other things, that illusionists observe with great attention the sudden dilation of the pupils and draw the appropriate consequences, for example when the letter comes out that the viewer is thinking, the pupils are usually dilated.
Extrasensory perceptions
The human being possesses a degree of perception to whose attention facts and events do not escape, however insignificant they seem.
TITLE: CONFUSION IN COMMUNICATION
AUTHOR: JUAN MANUEL DE LA COLINA [email protected]
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