I Just Don’t Understand

26Mar08

A contributor to Women From Another Planet? mentioned that reading Deborah Tannen’s You Just Don’t Understand helped her cut through a lot of her confusion about neurotypical* thinking. I’ve left that confusion far behind me (a long life combined with analytical abilities can do wonders for understanding), but I was curious enough to take the book out of the library the other day. I had never read it because the idea of men and women having different communication styles always seemed rather improbable and outlandish. I’ve learned better over the last few years, since so many studies have been published confirming that notion.

I skimmed through the first few chapters, picking up the essentials, but finally gave up without finishing the book. To say that it was boring and repetitive is probably to put myself outside the pale. Having been outside the pale all my life, I don’t consider that a problem. What was of primary interest in the book (and quickly became boring) was how convoluted everyday communication is. I know that it’s a mistake to take most statements at face value, but I had never seen so many examples in one place, explicitly pointed out and analyzed. The ultimate effect was depressing. If this is truly the dominant mode of communication, then idealists might as well give up any hope of significant change for the human race in the direction of ending violence, solving major problems, etc.

Of course, I know that it’s the dominant mode, and I’ve seen it in action over and over, but suddenly the idea has much more impact for me. My overall belief about humanity is that it’s a flawed, evolutionary dead-end. How could it not be when its members can’t even communicate with each other without becoming embroiled in misinterpretations and psychological twists and turns? And this is what’s considered normal and healthy.

I’m not even ready, at the moment, to consider the many ways in which important facets of society and culture are warped by the neurological differences of men and women, the ways in which gender is an influential factor when it shouldn’t be a factor at all. I suppose I should just be grateful for my non-gendered mind, which enables me to look at the world on its own terms, even though that ability is claimed (without any justification) by men as a male attribute.

* Neurotypical is used, variously, by communities such as autistics, physically disabled, etc., to denote the thinking styles of the so-called normal population. I think of the term as applicable to most of the human race.

Filed under: Communication, Human nature   |  
Tags: Communication, neurotypical, Women From Another Planet?, You Just Don't Understand