How fair will it be for an election to be swung by the psychology of "don't understand" towards unfamiliar situations?
NB - ELAS is for folks of any politics, short of racism against other members, and so is this blog. Any party view suggested by this post is only personal. Write a counter to it if you like.I have a particularly strong hate and sense of moral cause against what should be termed "the don't understand trick". This is when folks wilfully resist hearing a new idea of an upsetting fact, and evade having to make any response to it, by the device on insisting that they don't understand it.
There is no honesty in folks saying they don't understand. It is part of how narrow mindedness and respectability perpetuate themselves: oh no you can't go saying that to them, "they won't understand."
All communication is tyrannically shut down when thick yobs decide to keep saying they don't understand every time you say anything else than they want to hear, or is already familiar to them. Being up against this like a brick wall unless you only say what they want to hear, you are silenced. It is a vicious socially controlling device.
The don't understand trick is the greatest weapon of bigots and unfair obstacle to getting anything heard that's not what popular culture already wants to believe. If anything your hearer does not want to hear, or any new idea, is conveniently not understood, your voice is silenced. Your right to communicate is gagged. This is clearly out of order if the mob refuse to want to understand things to do with personal safety or schools endangering children. Think of an Open University study of anti-sexism where a boy enjoyed cooking in the privacy of home but was concerned to keep it secret from so-called friends because "they won't understand". Contemplate the evil of how, for trying to explain aspieness to folks who are unfamiliar with it, you can get labelled as a rubbish hard to understand character, while someone else for writing exactly the same things in books read by an autism familiar audience get labelled as a good recommendable author.
Of course a person can have genuine failings at following language and must be entitled to ask for explanations, but that is the point: willingness to understand. They would ask you to explain, point by point, the specific points where they are not following you. Players of the "don't understand" trick never do that. The "don't understand" posture is a refusal to listen, a withdrawal of patience from you getting the point across at all, rejecting of any further explanation you have. This is what proves it is a trick device. When you are genuine in not grasping what someone has said or written, you can itemise exactly where in the text your unclarity is and ask for explanation to clear up those bits. This is a posture of willingness to listen, of accepting the validity of the person getting their point across, and you see how utterly different it is to the hostile wall created by the "don't understand" posture.
That shows no one ever actually needs to say "I don't understand". You simply need to say instead, what does this word/phrase mean? can you explain this bit? how do you get from here to there? etc.
I have found an excellent revealing way to weed out the bullies who are using the "don't understand" posture as an oppression device. It proves from experience that my perception of this is right, and it needs sharing, it could be very useful for forcing folks to listen to you properly. When someone goes into the impatient posture that they don't understand so are not going to listen any more, then you invite them to go through what you have said, word by word, to pinpoint exactly what they don't understand so that you can explain it. They will always run a mile from this invitation. It utterly catches them out in the unjust evil true intent of their "don't understand" posture. You can test this out for yourself, the proof that the "don't understand" posture is an emotional abuse.
So, the election? Today the press are trying to muddle everyone with the situation around a Labour government's relation to the SNP. Following Miliband's renunciation 2 days ago of any deal with other parties, now several front pages saying: oh look, we've caught them out, they will do a deal. This is based on some of the Shadow Cabinet explaining that a minority government would go from vote to vote talking to other parties to get as much as it can of its own business through. That is not a deal. That is what Miliband already explicitly explained that that is not a deal. It is exactly what happens when there is not a deal, it is the way any minority government has to function, the other parties can jostle with it on passing or not passing each item of its business. It's the way the SNP minority government of 2007-11 worked, getting business through with Tory support so often that to be logically consistent these papers should accuse it of having a deal with the Tories, exactly what is terrible for the SNP ever to be seen by its voters to have. But logically consistent is what these headlines have an interest in not being. To understand what it or is not a deal takes willingness to listen to explanations and understand the system. For the real human minds of many voters, knee jerk prejudice is easier and saves mental effort. Oh look, this headline has made it sound like this means a deal, so it probably does, so it does. Conclusion reached, end of story, mind closed to further listening.
Because the story is written to fit prejudice that what the politician says is likely to be lies, the voter leaps to the simple conclusion that it is indeed lies in this case. To make any effort to understand the system would be an unwelcome mental effort. It could threaten 2 things for the voter, (i) a prejudice, (ii) their self-esteem of being right in leaping to the hasty conclusion. because these things are threatening, they must be shut out of mind, by insisting: no no no, I DON'T UNDERSTAND. Even if they would understand perfectly well if they chose to listen. So now, anyone trying to explain the technicality of why a minority government's work to pass each vote is not a deal, and why these shadow ministers have not confessed there will be a deal, will just get "I don't understand." And that psychology in enough voters could change the election's outcome.
The voting reform referendum in 2011, already, appeared swung by a "don't understand" prejudice. The argument that the proposed new system took more effort to understand, succeeded in appealing to voters to reject it. That worked better as an argument than the case that it was a fairer system. So this is totally capable of happening. Now in this multifaceted election, that recent rejection of reform is a real pain to all the folks voting tactically or frustrated that voting the way they want won't match with dealing with the contest most threatening to happen in their seat. They have the unjust "don't understand" psychology to thank for dumping them in it.
Maurice Frank
