Date:         Mon, 3 Nov 1997 00:07:14 EST
From: "a flat tire..." <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Subject:      FILLER: Life with Multilogues

(or, another paradigm for list chatter)

[in which our hero spreads dusty words everywhere--over 2,000 of
them--mostly about stuff that is just obvious to everyone...when they
stop to think about it]

First, before I say anything else, I want to thank all of you.  Many of
you have written privately, and some publicly, asking me to do
something, making suggestions as to what I could do, or flaming me for
not doing what you wanted me to do.

The expression of trust behind all of those messages--that I would
listen, that I wouldn't strike back, that I would be fair--that
expression of trust humbles me.  And I want to thank all of you for it.

Next, I think, let me warn you.  This message, as much as I have worked
on it, is NOT the whole answer.  Don't make the mistake of thinking that
everything is wrapped up and tied in a package--there will be pieces
that fall out in the future, as they have in the past.  There will be
new twists and turns.  And we'll have to go back and climb these same
old steps again from time to time with new customers...and smile nice at
them, it will be their first time.

I hope that this is just part of a neverending discussion, a route
marker on that long march, not a dead end.

[I don't suppose I really need to point out that what you think this
message says when you read it may not be exactly the same as what I
thought this message would say when I wrote it, do I?  I mean, the
thought in my head, the expected thoughts in my imagined audience, and
the real thought in your head...all tied together with these puny words?
let's get real, what are the chances that it all matches perfectly?]

A short table of contents (with 2,000 plus words, you get a table of
contents.)

1. The Multilogue
2. The Pile-On
3. Floods of Diversion, but not a response for me?
4. Who all is out there?
5. Where's the Goalposts?
6. A One-Note Symphony?
7. Two-thirds cooperation, one-fourth aggression, and some slop...
8. Some possible approaches to living with multilogues

[if you're looking for the part about harassment, controversy,
obscenity, censorship, safe words...sorry, but in cutting down the nine
versions of this message and trimming over 5,000 words down to this,
they didn't make it.  Later this week, probably.]

1. The Multilogue

[This isn't the Junior Chamber of Commerce.]

I'm going to use a term which isn't very common...the multilogue.  We're
all familiar with the monologue and the dialogue, but the kind of
communication environment that this kind of list provides is something
else, even though it sometimes appears deceptively familiar.

In the monologue, one person talks (and talks, and talks) while the rest
merely listen.  The central figure must make things interesting, or at
least have sufficient power to make everyone listen.

In the dialogue, there are two sides.  One talks, then the other.  One
listens, then the other.  If there is an audience, they merely listen.
And there are often implicit assumptions about the outcome--if one wins,
the other loses.  Or, as many people play the game, if you lose, I win.

However, I think lists like this can offer a different model of
interaction--the multilogue.  This involves multiple people with many
different "sides" or "positions" or "interests."  Like the monologue,
the central figures need to rely heavily on keeping the exchanges
interesting.  It also seems unlikely that there is anything like the
clear "win-lose" assumption of the dialogue possible.  Indeed, the
multilogue makes everyone a winner when it is positive and enriching,
and everyone a loser when it is negative and sapping.

One of the characteristics of taking part in a multilogue may be that it
is like carrying a ladder in a crowd.  If you go too fast, you'll clip
someone ahead of you.  If you go too slow or stop suddenly, you'll
clobber the people behind you.  And as for turning--you'll probably
catch someone on both sides without even trying.

Let me emphasize this because it's one of the points I keep tripping
over, and I'm never sure how to deal with it.  Around MIT, this is one
of the favorite ways to refuse to allow positive statements of any
kind--just point out that by expressing this single positive point at
this time, one must logically be implying that all the other times were
negative.  And suddenly what I might have naively thought was a positive
affirmation becomes a point of dissension and attack... Especially when
framed in a simple polarized win/loss model of the world, it's easy to
take even positive statements and turn them into negative attacks.  E.g.
"How dare you thank one person!  By doing so, you automatically
denigrate and attack everyone else!  You also are accusing them of not
being worthy of thanks at other times!"

["oops...did I catch you with my elbow again?"  and as the cavorting
figure sweeps a bow, one hand hits yet another person in the crowd while
at least one person wrinkles their nose at the accidental mooning
occuring behind our hero in his royal dress and someone else clips him
with the edge of their load... and the crowd rolls on.]

2. The Pile-On

[Let's do the time warp again!]

Let's consider, just for a moment, what happens during an exchange on
this list (or any other list).

One member (you, for example) posts a message.  Listserv gleefully sends
out copies to all the members.  (Note: due to reading habits, travel,
etc., the receipt and reading of the messages may occur at various
times.  This "scattering" in time normally isn't too important, but it
is a slight difference from...oh, public speeches, for example.)

Anyway, one or more people can now respond to the message.  And here,
the multilogue varies significantly from meetings and other forums.  In
an oral forum, only one person can speak at a time.  But on a list like
this, as many people as want to can post practically simultaneously.  So
a single posting can cause multiple replies, which are queued up,
copied, and sent out to the readership.

Incidentally, here the multilogue splinters even farther.  Suppose
you've seen the original message plus two or three of the responses--and
you post something into the mix.  When I see your posting in the middle
of a backwash, sideslip, or other flurry of posts related to this, the
context has changed...and I may decide that you really don't understand
what we're talking about!  So I blast away, blithely unaware that the
current mesh of controversy has wandered off into some other strangeness
unrelated to what I thought I saw (from where I sit, based on what I've
read of the ebb and flow).

Let's call the multiplication of responses the "pile-on" phenomenon.
Each person may only send one little response--but when we look at the
collection, it appears as if EVERYONE is piling on!

3. Floods of Diversion, but not a response for me?

[I see you shiver with antici...]

A related, but slightly different effect, is what I call "wading flood
waters of diversion."  The tugs in other directions that occur from all
the threads on the list and the massive number of individual life
experiences going on around the list make it hard to get the attention
of the list (or significant members of the list).  Actually, given that
we can't really tell whether someone is reading or not, it isn't
possible to say whether we've really stirred something up--but there is
a tendency to feel that unless someone responds, we are being IGNORED.
And that's hard...

So we post something.  And no one says anything.  And we feel
frustrated, angry, upset...and post something that is a little farther
out there, a little harsher in tone, a little nastier.

And if someone responds to that--well, at least we got a response.

(I'll leave it to the behavioralists among us to explain why such
responses tend to encourage exactly the behavior we might have thought
we were discouraging...)

[...pation.]

4. Who all is out there?

[Don't get strung out by the way I look.]

Another factor in this tossed salad has to be the range or mix of
participants.  Young, old, varied backgrounds, various goals, hopes, and
fears... communication is hard when the audience is fairly homogenous.

[I'm just a sweet transvestite from transexual Transylvania.]

We ain't exactly homogenized.

5. Where's the Goalposts?

[The sword of Damocles is hanging over my head.]

Yet another quirkiness of the multilogue lies in the apparent lack of
"criteria for winning."  In school, most of our communications were
rewarded by the teacher declaring a winner.  In debates, the judges
declare the winners. In politics, we vote for the winner.

However, in the multilogue, there often is no clear winner.

Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that the whole group, at
times, has a victory when the clarity, variety, and number of concepts,
metaphors, and frames increases?

[Whatever happened to Saturday night?]

6. A One-Note Symphony?

[I really love that rock'n'roll.]

One of the things I want to point to is an analogy to music.  It's hard
to even imagine a symphony orchestra made up all of one instrument
playing one note repeatedly.  This would be boring, to say the least.
And yet, when we insist on agreement, when we try to dominate and
control the exchange of the multilogue--aren't we in some ways trying to
get everyone to play the same note?  When we insist that THIS is the
proper form, aren't we trying to get everyone to use our instrument, not
theirs?

I'd rather hear the concord of discord, the wonderful disharmony of an
orchestra tuning up, than the mournful drone of solitary conquest or the
tinny rattle of a Pyrrhic trophy overflowing with ashes...

One of the phrases I've heard used recently (not on the list, in that
other hazy part of my life) has been "tolerance of difference".  The
problem I have with that wording is that it makes it sound as if there
is something wrong with difference, that we have to put up with it, have
to suffer.  I really honestly believe that difference, diversity,
multiplicity--that vibrant growth of unique individuals--that whole
approach is something to be joyful about.

So, instead of "tolerance of difference," I'd suggest some of these
phrases:
    fostering diversity
    a trust in difference
    a unity of diversity
    an understanding of distinction
    a concord of discord
    a diversified portfolio of opinions

in other words, we're not just accepting difference and diversity, we're
actively trying to promote it!

7. Two-thirds cooperation, one-fourth aggression, and some slop...

[in just seven days, I can make you a man...]

According to studies (the source is training on negotiation, a movie by
a UCLA Law professor--although most of us can attest to its approximate
truth from experience), the average American group (large enough,
randomly selected, etc.) contains about two-thirds "cooperatives" and
one-fourth "aggressives".

So what?

Cooperatives are the folks who like to "get it all out on the table" and
then "we'll talk about it."  They tend to assume that the other person
is honest, willing to compromise--they expect that they are looking in a
mirror.

Aggressives, on the other hand, are "playing the game close to their
vest" and "keep an ace up their sleeves."  They tend to assume that the
other person has a hidden agenda, and that everyone is out to get as
much as they can--they are looking in the mirror, too, but "you can't go
by appearances."

The fun part, for negotiation training, comes when you consider the three
possible matchups.  When cooperatives meet, they share information and
quickly come to an equitable resolution.  When aggressives meet, it may
take a bit longer, but the resolution is likely to be relatively
reasonable.

When cooperative and aggressive meet, though, the fireworks start.  The
cooperative offers a little information, and the aggressive jumps on
them.  The aggressive pushes for a little extra, and the cooperative
gives more than is needed.  An experienced cooperative may block and
short-cut all the aggressive's moves, but there is never a response that
the cooperative can recognize as getting ready to "come to the table."
In most cases, there will not be a resolution.  And in many cases where
there is a resolution, it isn't a good one.  And in almost all cases,
the negotiators are angry and upset with "that guy who doesn't know how
to play the game."

Note that BOTH the cooperative and the aggressive negotiators come away
with the impression that the other person isn't acting right.

Now, consider what happens in the multilogue, where many people are
participating, with some mix of cooperatives and aggressives (and NONE
of them USDA labeled so that we know right away which group they belong
to...).  The cooperatives are busily putting cards on the table, giving
away their secrets, and otherwise being "up-front" about participating.
The aggressives are trying to figure out what the angle is, what is
going on, and how do I win this game?

I think multilogues must be terribly frustrating for aggressives...

8. Some possible approaches to living with multilogues

[A hot groin and a triceps.]

These are some of my notions about ways to work with the multilogue:

    1.  Be aware of the "pile-on" effect--and don't confuse the number
of responses with an intentional attack.
    2.  Be wary of the flood of diversion--sometimes silence doesn't
mean you're being ignored, it just means there is a lot happening.
    3.  Be conscious of the range and variety of your audience.  Don't
assume they are just like you--some of us aren't.
    4.  Be conscious of your own desires to win, and consider it a
victory if you have expressed yourself clearly.  Consider it a
championship when others ask you questions--it means they are thinking
about it!
    5.  Foster diversity, and help us build a strong diversified
portfolio of opinions.

    And mostly, at every point, remember that the other participants are
individuals who deserve respect and thanks for helping.

thanks
tink