[from Mary Powers (930410.1030 MDT)]
Ken Hacker (& Bill Cunningham)
OK, you tell us. What is it about social interaction,
communication, or "messaging" (yuk) that is NOT fundamentally a
process taking place within individual control systems? How are
some forms of control [located] in aspects of social
interaction.
This suggests that interaction is not located in any person or
persons, but in the space between. Is this what you mean? How
does it work? What is an aspect?
PCT proposes
1) the production, by a person, of outputs intended to alter his
perception of environmental variables (what other people do or
say) in a desired way.
and
2) the perception of variables produced by other people, such as
sounds and body language, which are
a) compared to a desired state.
b) in conjunction with that desired state, generate outputs,
which
c) alter one's own perceptions of those variables (perceived
as produced by other people) toward the desired state.
You say
PCT...does help explain how each communicator controls his/her
messaging in any act of communication.
A communicator controls his perception of his communication, and
changes what he perceives of it until he is satisfied with his
perception of what the other person is saying or doing.
You seem to see communication as an act, a message as an act "out
there". Interaction takes place "out there" between people. PCT
proposes that while "out there" exists, all we can know of it is
the perceptions we have of it. "It" includes our own and others'
acts of communication. All I know of what you are saying is what
I perceive of it. All I know of what I am saying is what I
perceive of it. All I know of our interaction is how it appears
to me. The same goes for you. Each of us is dealing entirely with
our own perceptions.
You will read what I've written here, and make of it whatever you
can. You will either confirm what I say or object, depending on
whether you perceive all this to be wonderfully clear or a bunch
of garbage or somewhere in between. If you get it, I will
perceive that I have communicated well, and be satisfied. If not,
I will either give up or try again, depending on whether I think
I can say something else that I perceive will make the desired
difference in what you say.
You seem to agree that people are control systems. What you have
not grasped are the implications of that point of view - that it
questions many of your fundamental assumptions about
communication and interaction - which are presently expressed as
the production of behavior rather than the control of perception.
Mary Powers