Tag Archives: Deborah Tannen

Developing a Default Critical Style

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This is the most interesting kind of rhetoric, and a style to be used by anyone who wants to be a better communicator.

We think of everyday communication as the passing of information from one to another. That is often true, but listen carefully, and it is clear that more is going on. It’s one thing to receive directions for driving to a new restaurant. But its another when the “information” being passed on by a friend is, incidentally, a judgment on its quality.

Yah. I know the spot you are talking about. It’s at the corner where Awful meets Expensive. Actually, keep going straight and its about a mile on the right.

Maybe you know fewer wise guys. But we get the point. We embed attitudes, judgements, and evaluations in almost everything we say. Most of us have an endless store of descriptive adjectives to employ. Those silos never seem to be drawn down by overuse. And in the company of friends, it can be affirming to our egos to have an opinion. But everyday rhetoric that is essentially a string of opinions is its own ersatz style. And it seems to be the norm as we “converse” more and more in very truncated messages. Talk to your uncle Fred or listen to the President, both of whom should pay a surcharge for all of their dismissive one-liners. It’s too much. A few more samples:

This novelist never had an original character. End of story.

He’s a nice guy but is only good for three chords on that guitar.

Her dozens of movies in the 1950s were pretty mediocre.

Except for the Bolt, Chevy never made a good car.

The problem here is partly that we are smuggling unearning attitudes into a conversation, skipping the obligation to explain ourselves. We owe others the courtesy of having real reasons. Because we are blessed with the vast resources of ordinary language, our conversational partners deserve at least a little more substance and less attitude. A renewed obligation to explain turns what is may be a truncated introjection into a clearer critical stance.

By the use of the term “critical” here, I mean judgements and information that include useful detail. All we need is the will to do it and an interlocuter with a little patience. A person is not a drama critic if their view is represented in one simple dismissal. They are not a thoughtful judge of a musician if their efforts can be reduced to the brevity of a social media troll. Good criticism paves the way to more understanding and insight.

If we become more aware of assertions that should be explained we are using a critical style to elevate an exchange with another. We often let ourselves off the hook too easily when we offer a blustery contention that too often signals that no more need be said.

The classic film My Dinner with Andre (1981) offers a sense of what it like to use conversation to fully interrogate our thoughts. As the film suggests, good conservation is a worthy goal of two souls trying to make sense of their place in the world.

As Researcher Deborah Tannen described in the 1990s, the genders may be wired differently. With many exceptions, a pattern of clipped dismissals may still be more typical of men than women. Whether there is still a preference for opinion giving in lieu of more dialogical communication is open to debate. But I have no problem identifying male friends or even the current President with a communication style front-loaded with declarations, and final judgements: all without a hint of putting them to the test by hearing from others.

To be sure, a critical style is bound to retain loose ends and unexplored contentions, but if it is augmented with evidence and good reasons, it is a more useful way to relate to others. The style requires having the will to explain oneself rather than merely recycling one easy summation.

One route to thinking in terms of a critical style is to get in the habit by reading more thoughtful writing about areas of special interest, which could range from art or architecture, or novels and music. Critics and columnists online or in print are paid to explain their opinions. We read them because we want to hear their reasons, not just a curt thumbs up or down. This is the most interesting kind of rhetoric, and a style to be emulated by anyone who wants to be a better communicator. One-word judgments just don’t cut it.

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The Fred Rogers Moment

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The subject of masculine ways of coping has never been more top-of-mind.

In her book You Just Don’t Understand (1992) Deborah Tannen notes that men tend to be more assertive and less self-disclosive than women. Tannen was one of many scholars interested in mapping the different rhetorical styles of the sexes. That was the 90s. Now, nearly two decades later, gender has never been a more fluid idea. Moreover, early research on male behavior patterns tended to take myriad exceptions off the table.  Even so, she was surely right to note that there is a masculine style of assertion and opinion-giving that remains a relatively durable norm.

Even a lunch with my male colleagues can lead to a round of firm and forceful opinions laid out for others at the table to take or leave. We throw them around like players in the infield warming up before a game. The style is more or less the opposite of the listening and questioning that Tannen described as a norm for a feminine style.

These old formulations came to mind when I was watching Morgan Neville’s documentary about Fred Rogers, Won’t You be My Neighbor (2018) and the more recent Tom Hanks film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019). Both feature a lot of footage of Rogers with children, of course, but also with a number of parents and admirers as well.  In our current polarized climate it clearly shows a different kind of man.  The film which has just migrated to cable and public television outlets features the children’s television pioneer as a patient slow-talker with a natural curiosity.  Rogers was a good match for the kids that Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood was intended to reach.

It was even more interesting to see Rogers testifying before Congress in 1969, trying to secure permanent funding for the shaky new medium of public television. In contrast to the crusty chair of the Senate Sub-Committee on Communications, Rogers seemed like a totally different kind of advocate: patient, a bit tentative, and more indirect than assertive. The Presbyterian minister who turned to children’s television in order to save it seemed more pastoral than insistent.  Was he ahead of his time?

The subject of masculine ways of coping has never been more top-of-mind. The wider release of these Rogers films were preceded with a high visibility of a set of ads sponsored by the Gillette brand of Procter and Gamble.  “We Believe: the Best Men Can Be” was a series of spots cut to different lengths, all disowning a kind of macho-masculinity that is still easily recognized: matching threats with threats, groping women, and thoughtless fathers raising boys to be more tough than compassionate.

With the #MeToo Movement and “rape culture” as topic number one in Hollywood as well as most American university campuses, there has perhaps never been a cultural moment when the idea of masculine bravado looked so out of place. Of course how ‘out of place’ depends where one is.  But we are clearly at the beginning of a period when bluster and opinion-giving (“mansplaining” in one modern formulation) look like they’ve had their day.  Among other signs, the shameless mendaciousness of our President looks even more tired and shopworn.