Friday, April 19, 2013

We're all ventriloquists...

...Voices Inside Their Heads

To some extent this is true of all of us. Look at your out-box: in the past hour you may have sent e-mails to mother, partner, boss and child, possibly even describing the same party. But each one is likely to have been written in a very different voice, and even to have treated the event quite differently — not to do so would be a form of insensitivity. “A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him,” as William James had it. It’s the man who doesn’t change his voice according to his audience who seems scary, locked inside his own assumptions.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting...but absolutely contradictory to the way I try to communicate. I try to use the same voice for all -- personal and business -- on the theory that it is me that is communicating, not a construct informed by others' expectations...

    ReplyDelete