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Thinking about fault and responsibility is maybe misleading? If I'm trying to communicate a thing to another person and I fail, I've failed. Totally failed. Whe

Thinking about fault and responsibility is maybe misleading? If I'm trying to communicate a thing to another person and I fail, I've failed. Totally failed. Whether that bothers me or not depends on the context, sometimes it does. And it seems like at those points just saying "Well I made noises, it's the others persons fault they couldn't understand me, nothing to do with me" is an attitude that isn't going to get me far in life. Basically, if you want to achieve your task of "communicate a thing" you HAVE to think about the listener.

asjw 7y ago
You also have to ignore the listener that don't listen or that don't understand, despite others did or have never put themselves in the condition of needing an explanation. Basically communication is bidirectional, if the listener don't understand anything, it's probably their fault too. Understanding is not a right or a gift, it's a process. You can't force people to understand and no matter how you think about the listener, the listener have to do their part: listen.
- jarofgreen 7y ago
  > Basically communication is bidirectional, if the listener don't understand anything, it's probably their fault too. I wouldn't say "probably". It might be. It might be the fault of the speaker. Or maybe both. Basically, my point was that it's not ONLY the listener's fault.
zajio1am 7y ago
I would say that responsibility for success in communication depends mainly on intentional aspects of the communication and may fall on either speaker or listener (or both). I.e., both sides have some level of expected interest/gain in successful communication and that makes each of them implicitly responsible (at least to themselves) for their part of gain from communication.
- jarofgreen 7y ago
  > may fall on either speaker or listener (or both). I fully agree. :-) My point was it does not fall only on the listener.

asjw 7y ago

You also have to ignore the listener that don't listen or that don't understand, despite others did or have never put themselves in the condition of needing an explanation. Basically communication is bidirectional, if the listener don't understand anything, it's probably their fault too. Understanding is not a right or a gift, it's a process. You can't force people to understand and no matter how you think about the listener, the listener have to do their part: listen.

jarofgreen 7y ago
> Basically communication is bidirectional, if the listener don't understand anything, it's probably their fault too. I wouldn't say "probably". It might be. It might be the fault of the speaker. Or maybe both. Basically, my point was that it's not ONLY the listener's fault.

zajio1am 7y ago

I would say that responsibility for success in communication depends mainly on intentional aspects of the communication and may fall on either speaker or listener (or both). I.e., both sides have some level of expected interest/gain in successful communication and that makes each of them implicitly responsible (at least to themselves) for their part of gain from communication.

jarofgreen 7y ago
> may fall on either speaker or listener (or both). I fully agree. :-) My point was it does not fall only on the listener.