Communication

A night or so back my wife and I were talking about communication, particularly in the context of marriage and relationships. Bethany noted that many aspects of communication (and communication difficulties) in marriage have analogues in the cross-cultural sphere that we have been looking at in class. For example, consider the stereotypical situation in which man asks "is something wrong?" and woman responds "no I'm fine" and the man leaves it at that even though something is obviously wrong.
This is a stereotype, and as a result imperfect and only marginally helpful, but it does illustrate a few things. First, the differences in communication styles (direct/indirect) reinforce each others frustration. The man is frustrated because he knows something isn't right but the woman just won't come out and say what is wrong, while the woman feels that the man is being insensitive. (incidentally, this thought process stems from the conversation my wife and I were having, which began with me having to probe carefully to figure out what was wrong. That took time and energy, and I realized that it would be tempting to just leave it at "yes I'm fine"). This scenario is similar to the situation professor Martinez described between the Anglo denominational official and the Latino congregation. There is a communication difficulty, and it is tempting for both sides to just give it up and let the other be.
two things I noted from these scenarios, two things that are needed for authentic communication to take place. 1) One must put the other before the self, and 2) communication requires perserverance, an emotional commitment if you will.
In the above examples, for communication to proceed one or both parties needs to begin thinking of and for the other, and make the needs of the other important enough to stop everything and make sure that communication takes place. One can ask the question "is something wrong?" without significantly changing one's thought process and direction, but when the other says "I'm fine" when it is clear they are not one is faced with a decision. One can break off what one was thinking/doing/planning and make the other's concerns one's own, or one can shrug it off and go on with one's day. To communicate here will require more care for the other; one cannot approach this instance of communication simply with one's own interests in mind. To truly communicate here requires one to break pace, pull up and "wait a minute"--something is not right and the other needs assurance that one really want's it to become "our" problem rather than just "their" problem. This thought could be pursued further along the lines of "bear one another's burdens."
Bound up with the commitment to the other is a commitment to persevere, a commitment of emotional energy and concern. It takes some strange emotional and mental "oomph" (yes, that is the technical term--oomph) to try to open up communication with another when something is clearly not right. There is a concern that "maybe I'll just make things worse" or "what if it's my fault?" as well as the simple issue of having to give up one's own concerns for a moment to share the concerns of another.
I break of the train of thought here to note that we need to better understand what our goal is. When I asked my wife "is something wrong?" I did not simply want a "yes" or "no," i.e. my goal was something other than knowledge. May I suggest that what we seek in communication is communion? Russian philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin wrote "to be is to be in communion." The question then shifts to, what is communion? Not knowledge of the internal states of another, though that is a mediating step perhaps? Bearing each other's burdens--this seems to have something to do with communion; not just burdens but joys as well. These are some questions that we could/should raise...
Returning to requirement 2, the need for emotional commitment/perserverance, we see some interesting implications for our intercultural communications. For example, communication between Anglos and African-Americans will require a particularly large amount of emotional strength and resolve because questions like "maybe it's my fault" or "are they angry at me?" are much closer to the surface. To return to the analogy of marriage, it is more difficult to communicate if I know full well that I have some how hurt my wife than if I have not (to the best of my knowledge) hurt her myself. Even in the latter case there is the nagging question, "was it something I did or said, or didn't do or say?" When cultures that have hurt and been hurt by each other attempt to communicate--to commune--the stakes are higher, consequently more emotional oomph is needed.