Letter from the President

John Hathaway-Bates
President & Executive Director

Recent reports state that the vocabulary of the average American is actually becoming smaller and has been doing so every year since the advent of television.  Someone brought this fact up at a recent meeting and asked me my opinion on the matter.  Like one of those songs that you cannot get out of your head, the question goes round and round in my consciousness, ending in the horrific possibility that not long from now America will have so many dialects English will become a dead language, much as the ancient languages of Greek and Latin, and whatever it was the Pharaohs used to rule the world in their time.  

So, I wish to whimsically state my own long and ardently held opinion on the subjects of Vocabulary and Communication, as follows:

Communication & Control:  It is my contention that if one can communicate true and honest reason, then one can usually control almost any human situation, be it commercial, social or political, far better than if one cannot communicate with an adequate vocabulary.  Doing this however, has been the usually beyond reach ambition of man, woman and child since the first human uttered the first grunt to another human being. 

Therefore, it would seem that other than life itself (health, food and shelter), the most important need we have is to be able to communicate.

Communicate is defined by Webster's New World Dictionary as: 

1. to impart; transmit.   2. to give (information, etc.)

Therefore to be able to communicate is to be able to pass on information, ideas, moral codes, etc., and to be able to share abstracts, philosophies, to be able to learn, investigate and then reason, and understand, by debate, all other human and civilized things that differentiate us from the Apes.  Therefore, one could say that the ability to communicate is without any doubt at all Mankind's greatest asset.  It is a tool with which one can build happiness.  It is a weapon for defense with greater power than any other.  It is the gift of being able to perform miracles.  It is the oracle from which all knowledge flows.  Without the ability to communicate Humanity as we know it would cease to exist.

Mankind has developed the art of communication to the point where it is the single most important factor affecting the development, perhaps even the existence, of all of us; and the lack of such ability is possibly the most devastating negative to happiness, success and individuality.

No one however, has the right to decide what is, or is not, successful communication for the purpose of imposing that opinion on others; yet everyone has a duty to try to improve the art of communication for its own sake.  Therefore in writing my own opinion on the art of communication, I feel that it is necessary to justify myself and my reasons for doing so.  This is my opinion!  I have no doubt that everything which follows those words is open to criticism and debate; in fact I would feel justified if it is important enough to debate.  The truth is that I have come to the conclusion that very few of the world's problems, between individuals and nations, would be able to exist if more people began to communicate about them, using actual facts and not just shouting stereotypes and blatant propaganda preconceived by others and taught to them, and which they have never bothered to check or research.

(Example:  Ask anyone on the planet (a) what do they believe is the true religion that all people should follow?  Then ask them (b) what is your religion?  Then ask them (c) what is/was your parent's religion?  and lastly,  (d) if you received religious instruction as a child, in what religion did you receive it?  Guess what - 90% of the people in the world will give you the same answer to all four questions!  Try the same questions for politics, pride in a nation, language, food, etc. etc. and are they not just shouting stereotypes and blatant propaganda preconceived by others and taught to them, and which they have never bothered to check or research.

I am a firm believer that all people, with the possible exception of the insane, wish to be good.  I do not believe that any of us ever wishes to be not good, when given the choice.  I believe that people who do bad things, do so out of fear or frustration, and often they are frightened only because they do not understand or cannot understand, or frustrated because they never learned to communicate their true meanings or feelings - that is, beyond the very basic.  It is said that there are five people that do not understand all of the words used in the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, for every one that does!

How often have you or I been trapped in an uncomfortable or embarrassing situation, because we were misunderstood or misspoke?  How often have we failed someone, because we could not make them understand?   How often have you seen someone lose out or fail, because they could not explain what they really meant?  How often have you known someone to give up, because they were unable to make someone see the truth?  Obviously in each case communication was lost, or proved inadequate in every one of those situations; and because of it some­one was hurt, or lost what they most needed, or perhaps only wanted. A potential positive  changed into a definite negative through a failure in communication.

How many careers, businesses, marriages, friendships, partnerships and of course lives, have been ruined because communication failed?  Also, if you need proof that it was all due to communication, most relationships of any kind that come to an end are actually called off by the person in the right. You can always identify the person who was in the right, it is the person who is telling you how the relationship ended!  What is so amusing, if it were not so sad, is that they will almost always use the words he(she) just did not understand.

The ability to communicate can, if we develop it properly, allow us to describe our innermost feelings, defend or promote our convictions, teach or learn abstract facts of both our Universe and the Society of Mankind we live in.  This of course presupposes that the other person involved is not too greedy or selfish to hear what is being communicated.  With the ability to communicate philosophies can be developed, knowledge can be shared and gained, happiness can be obtained easier, negotiations to gain a better life can be entered into, and left, with little or no fear of animosity.  The future can be changed and improved, even if it cannot be guaranteed.  Like no other living animal on this planet, or any other we know of anywhere else, you and I as thinking human beings can take the gift of communication and bring about great things for ourselves, our loved ones, and every other living thing in the Universe.

The greatest tragedy, however, is that only a very few people will ever take this gift, and use it to the full.  This ultimate tool for good will be reduced by the majority of human beings to a chore, something to use only to get by, and by this most dangerous neglect, the ills of the world we live in will probably continue.  It is a futile belief of many of the intelligentsia that all people would learn to communicate better if given the opportunity to do so.  The fact of the matter is, however, that the majority of humankind would rather be cared for and entertained by civilization, than take part in its improvement, or invest some of their leisure time in bettering their education, knowledge or themselves .  Others will avoid the truth, and the opportunity to bring something to a successful conclusion, rather than face the reality of a situation that it is easier to ignore, or just run away from.

It is another assertion of the establishment and academia that the ability to communicate is dependent upon intelligence, whereas with every year I come closer to the complete belief that the opposite is true believe that intelligence is dependent upon the ability to communicate!  I have recently seen reports that intelligence does increase with education and experience, whereas when I was young it was a commonly held opinion that one was either born with intelligence, or one was not.  If it is finally proven that education by communication, which is the only way it can happen incidentally, does prove intelligence and the ability to function as a human being, then perhaps our schools will be geared to teach communication rather than self-expression.

We are, all of us, dependent upon the Society we live in to be able to take full advantage of our lives.  Yet these days we are told, in fact implored, to be yourself, to be an individual.  What few of these advocates of individuality remember, however, is that it should always be within the framework of society, and to the overall benefit not only to oneself, but also of others.   It should also be remembered that one can only be an individual within a Society, an individual operating outside of society is merely alone.  To look at one's life from the purely selfish viewpoint of I want what I want, usually proves to be far less successful than a life statement of I am who I am but I strive to be a better member of my family, my business and of  Society as a whole.  As many have learned, actively striving to be unselfish more often than not give you more of what you want out of Life.  It is a matter of drawing a line at the edge of your moral-, pleasure-, ambition-, social-, and self-limits and learning to live to that extreme, and never more.  Establishing the possibility-limit of one's existence is not easy, but once done it has always amazed : how easy it is to obtain exactly what you really want out provided one does not sit back and rely upon someone else it to you. It gives a peace of mind few human beings ever even dream of gaming, let alone achieve on an ongoing basis. The ability to wish for better is the most important driving force behind anyone working to improve their ability to communicate.

The greatest failing of the human race in my opinion, is that most of its members do not take the time to learn anything about communication above the absolute minimum they need to just get by.  The ultimate gift our ancestors have bestowed upon us is the richness of the communication abilities available to us in the 21st Century.  The ability to communicate is by far the most important ability anyone can possess, yet there are so many people who by preference choose not to use the beauty of language to increase their own, and others, understanding and enjoyment of our brief lifetimes.  Instead, they hold within their heads the barest minimum of words, and give emphasis by inserting profanity, slang and ritualistic hand and body movements to gain effect, or merely to take the place of the language skills they never bothered to learn.

Peter Drucker once stated that "the ability to communicate is perhaps the most important skill a man can possess."  He understated the fact.  There is no perhaps about it, the ability to communicate is the paramount ability of all mankind.  The ability to communicate being only greater than the ability to express oneself, abilities which themselves are so far apart, that when teachers urge self-expression I never fail to wince.  Human beings communicate, Apes express themselves.

Communication is what makes Humans human.  In their book The Monkey Puzzle, John Gribbin and Jeremy Cherfas pointed out the fact that the DNA difference between Apes and Man is a mere 1 percent!  DNA, which controls genetic reproduction, differs between a Man and a Gorilla by only one percent!  The Ape is perfectly capable of self-expression, whereas man alone is able to truly communicate.   For communication is not merely the expression of an I want situation, it must also be capable of defining and describing abstracts, something that mere self-expression can never do.

Rene Descartes decided, after long consideration, that it is the use of language which makes Mankind unique, and for that statement he is remembered by History.  Knowing that 99% of what makes a Man a man, is exactly the same as what makes a Gorilla a gorilla, would seem to add value to what Descartes said so many years ago.

Take all of these facts a little further and you can see that it is possi­ble to come up with a rough level of evolution by the need of an in­dividual to wish to be able to communicate.

Communication of Ideas = Communicating Human Being 

Communication of Needs = Self Expressing Human Being 

Expressing Oneself = Non-communicating Humans and Apes

Now if you want a really controversial idea, would it not be possible to decide that the other graduation which could be applied to the three categories given above would be size of vocabulary.   In other words, the Gorilla without doubt has the smallest vocabulary, and the Communicating Human Being has the largest, therefore it could be said that the Stage of Evolution achieved for all bi-peds can be roughly judged by discovering the size of vocabulary a subject could learn and use.  Continuing that hypothesis, if you wish, it should therefore also be possible to evaluate the evolution stage of anyone, as an individual, or as the product of a particular social or educational system.  

By the subjects' own choice to learn and develop , or not, can it not be established where they are in the Ape/Human Scale simply by discovering the size of their working vocabulary. Obviously this is oversimplified, but imagine how many more people would learn to communicate better, if they believed it was a social fact that once you knew the size of any person's (or ape's) vocabulary, you would be able to determine just how human, or evolved, they were!  Therefore, my bantering this time is:

1.   To be human is to be able to communicate.  

2.   To communicate well is a basic survival need and a tool for success. 

3.   To be able to just talk may in fact actually be a negative in the ability to truly communicate, unless one really understands that communication is also the full understanding of the words being used, and not just the ability to speak them.

Whichever way you look at it, all information seems to suggest that the ability to communicate well would appear to be the only true way to control your future success and happiness - or the future success and happiness of your children.  It is essential to the future of the whole human race.  So, if you do not understand the words those around you are using - you are not involved in the communication process.

Hope to see you at lunch soon,

President & Executive Director

You can email me at   john@bizforum.org
You can telephone me at         310-550-1984 
or you can Fax me at                    310-550-6121

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Previous Letters from the President

April 2001
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June 2001
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The Etiquette of Formal & Business Dining

January 2002
February 2002
April 2002
May 2002
June 2002
July 2002
August 2002
September 2002
October 2002
November 2002

December 2002
The Viking Effect upon World Freedom

 A tongue-in-cheek treatise on the many benefits that a country gains simply by being founded by the descendants of populations who were most often raped, pillaged and looted by the Vikings.

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January 2003
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