[Applause]
I’d like to begin my talk with an audio
clip of a protest and counter protests
that recently took place in our city
the noise that just filled this room is
of me standing in complete chaos in that
moment I witnessed our system of
communication breaking down and every
word that anyone has said was entirely
meaningless as a society we know
communication is important but we’re
also challenged by it we’re challenged
by conversations and the result of that
challenge particularly in this case is a
futile effort because the person who
gets their message across is not who
screams the loudest and I would argue
that communication to a human life is as
important as breathing our ability to
process send and receive information is
not just an example of our capability
but our evolves form of being in the
field of communications there’s a
frequently used phrase attributed to
Marshall McLuhan which says the medium
is a message meaning it’s not what we
say but the way we say it that matters
most so in essence the words that I’m
saying right now are really not as
important as the way I’m choosing to say
them if we look at Twitter as the medium
we know that users are limited to a few
characters and the intent is to tap into
our short-term attention spans the
medium for Twitter is the message of
efficiency and urgency I have a theory
and today I’d like to present it to you
and that theory is called chaos
communication a key obstacle in having
genuine
understanding and empathy between people
chaos communication is the direct result
of the cognitive biases that we all have
and use to operate within the world but
I want to make it clear from the start
chaos communication isn’t going anywhere
it doesn’t need to be eliminated but
rather transformed
and one way to do this is through
meaningful dialogue now meaningful
dialogue may sound cliche but really
saying the term and acting on the term
are two very different things let’s
think back on the audio clip we just
heard one side is from a white
nationalist white supremacist pectus
while another from an anti-fascist I’d
like to tell you three factors that
contribute to chaos communication and
hinder meaningful dialogue with an
example of Derrick black so who’s Derek
black Derek black is an American guy who
just happens to be the son of Don Black
Don is the former Grand Wizard of the
KKK and also the founder of Stormfront
org the world’s most racist online form
I think you can imagine Derrick growing
up with a lot of established norms about
people of color and he felt they were
true based on his experiences the media
has upbringing family and so much more
he had genuine belief in white supremacy
and Derrick was also a smart guy he read
up on numerous books and studies that
supported white supremacy so that’s
Derek now let’s get into the factors of
chaos communication the first is that we
as human beings are generally
comfortable with our understanding of
the world complexity is uncomfortable
and we don’t like discomfort Derek grew
up in a genuine and comfortable world of
white supremacy it favored him so why
would he step out of his comfort zone
and the reality was that negative labels
and backlash against him or people in
his community actually just brought him
closer to others who identified as a
supremest so really to get Derek out of
his comfort zone he needed a different
approach a less shameful approach an
approach that he could really reflect on
his choices and guess what
that’s exactly what happened to him
while attending college away from his
family’s home he was sort of living
double lives not really telling the
truth about his identity or his beliefs
and he was outed the entire college
found out that he was a white supremists
and in that moment an individual reached
out to Derrick and invited him to a
community dinner an ethnic community
dinner and the intent of this individual
wasn’t to change Derrick or even to
convert Derrick but rather hey Derrick
if you’re gonna talk about our community
why not get to know us first and it was
in that moment that sparked the change
that sparked that dialogue and from
there on for months and months
Derrick spent time talking to people
learning researching engaging and having
those meaningful conversations and he
slowly gradually over time started to
remove false opinions from himself to a
point where he was completely changed he
had different ideals he had different
ideologies different beliefs so why
can’t we all change like Derrick and
this leads us to a second point that we
have a fear of change change is hard and
sometimes it requires us to think that
maybe we’re not as right as we think we
are and that’s not always a fun journey
to have or an easy one Derrick grew up
in a genuine world of white supremacy
can you imagine coming out of that can
you imagine coming out of your ideal
world your genuine world because what it
means is to betray to betray your entire
community your upbringing your family
your friends and that’s exactly what
Derrick did and his relationship with
his community particularly his father
was completely altered so through
Erik’s example we know that it’s very
possible to overcome this fear of change
but when engaging in this change it’s
incredibly important to remember to meet
people where they are everyone will have
their own journey somes will look
different some will take longer some
will take shorter and that’s completely
fine we don’t have to rush the process
but we do need to engage in that process
to overcome that fear of change because
sometimes fear comes with ambiguity and
this leads us to our last point that we
have difficulty dealing with ambiguity
something vague doesn’t always make
sense and it can challenge your way of
thinking that maybe there’s more than
one truth and the ideas of Western
society in particular are really based
off of procedures protocols measurements
we have systems in place for everything
so really ambiguity is not something we
like or are even trained for it’s so
much easier to side with things that we
think we understand and for Derek if it
wasn’t for the understanding peers that
he met through college that really gave
him a chance to challenge his way of
thinking while being respectful he
wouldn’t have come to where he is now
a former white nationalist a former
white supremists an activist these three
factors have one thing in common and
that’s resistance resistance to thinking
that we may be wrong that our values and
our perspectives may not tell the whole
story and that’s a very valid
conversation to have in our postmodern
world because once we start
understanding what’s influencing our way
of thinking we can start breaking down
those barriers we can start having those
meaningful conversations my solution to
chaos communication is in Kim su ghee
the Japanese art form that symbolizes
that repair requires transformation in
kansui broken pottery the cracks they’re
filled with gold in
silver in chaos communication we fill
these gaps with meaningful dialogue none
of us are immune to the bad in this
world and we have to embrace our
brokenness we have to embrace our
history chaos communication needs to be
embraced in order to transform it and so
in the words of Ernest Hemingway the
world breaks everyone and afterward many
are strong in the broken places thank
you
[Applause]
I’d like to begin my talk with an audio
clip of a protest and counter protests
that recently took place in our city
the noise that just filled this room is
of me standing in complete chaos in that
moment I witnessed our system of
communication breaking down and every
word that anyone has said was entirely
meaningless as a society we know
communication is important but we’re
also challenged by it we’re challenged
by conversations and the result of that
challenge particularly in this case is a
futile effort because the person who
gets their message across is not who
screams the loudest and I would argue
that communication to a human life is as
important as breathing our ability to
process send and receive information is
not just an example of our capability
but our evolves form of being in the
field of communications there’s a
frequently used phrase attributed to
Marshall McLuhan which says the medium
is a message meaning it’s not what we
say but the way we say it that matters
most so in essence the words that I’m
saying right now are really not as
important as the way I’m choosing to say
them if we look at Twitter as the medium
we know that users are limited to a few
characters and the intent is to tap into
our short-term attention spans the
medium for Twitter is the message of
efficiency and urgency I have a theory
and today I’d like to present it to you
and that theory is called chaos
communication a key obstacle in having
genuine
understanding and empathy between people
chaos communication is the direct result
of the cognitive biases that we all have
and use to operate within the world but
I want to make it clear from the start
chaos communication isn’t going anywhere
it doesn’t need to be eliminated but
rather transformed
and one way to do this is through
meaningful dialogue now meaningful
dialogue may sound cliche but really
saying the term and acting on the term
are two very different things let’s
think back on the audio clip we just
heard one side is from a white
nationalist white supremacist pectus
while another from an anti-fascist I’d
like to tell you three factors that
contribute to chaos communication and
hinder meaningful dialogue with an
example of Derrick black so who’s Derek
black Derek black is an American guy who
just happens to be the son of Don Black
Don is the former Grand Wizard of the
KKK and also the founder of Stormfront
org the world’s most racist online form
I think you can imagine Derrick growing
up with a lot of established norms about
people of color and he felt they were
true based on his experiences the media
has upbringing family and so much more
he had genuine belief in white supremacy
and Derrick was also a smart guy he read
up on numerous books and studies that
supported white supremacy so that’s
Derek now let’s get into the factors of
chaos communication the first is that we
as human beings are generally
comfortable with our understanding of
the world complexity is uncomfortable
and we don’t like discomfort Derek grew
up in a genuine and comfortable world of
white supremacy it favored him so why
would he step out of his comfort zone
and the reality was that negative labels
and backlash against him or people in
his community actually just brought him
closer to others who identified as a
supremest so really to get Derek out of
his comfort zone he needed a different
approach a less shameful approach an
approach that he could really reflect on
his choices and guess what
that’s exactly what happened to him
while attending college away from his
family’s home he was sort of living
double lives not really telling the
truth about his identity or his beliefs
and he was outed the entire college
found out that he was a white supremists
and in that moment an individual reached
out to Derrick and invited him to a
community dinner an ethnic community
dinner and the intent of this individual
wasn’t to change Derrick or even to
convert Derrick but rather hey Derrick
if you’re gonna talk about our community
why not get to know us first and it was
in that moment that sparked the change
that sparked that dialogue and from
there on for months and months
Derrick spent time talking to people
learning researching engaging and having
those meaningful conversations and he
slowly gradually over time started to
remove false opinions from himself to a
point where he was completely changed he
had different ideals he had different
ideologies different beliefs so why
can’t we all change like Derrick and
this leads us to a second point that we
have a fear of change change is hard and
sometimes it requires us to think that
maybe we’re not as right as we think we
are and that’s not always a fun journey
to have or an easy one Derrick grew up
in a genuine world of white supremacy
can you imagine coming out of that can
you imagine coming out of your ideal
world your genuine world because what it
means is to betray to betray your entire
community your upbringing your family
your friends and that’s exactly what
Derrick did and his relationship with
his community particularly his father
was completely altered so through
Erik’s example we know that it’s very
possible to overcome this fear of change
but when engaging in this change it’s
incredibly important to remember to meet
people where they are everyone will have
their own journey somes will look
different some will take longer some
will take shorter and that’s completely
fine we don’t have to rush the process
but we do need to engage in that process
to overcome that fear of change because
sometimes fear comes with ambiguity and
this leads us to our last point that we
have difficulty dealing with ambiguity
something vague doesn’t always make
sense and it can challenge your way of
thinking that maybe there’s more than
one truth and the ideas of Western
society in particular are really based
off of procedures protocols measurements
we have systems in place for everything
so really ambiguity is not something we
like or are even trained for it’s so
much easier to side with things that we
think we understand and for Derek if it
wasn’t for the understanding peers that
he met through college that really gave
him a chance to challenge his way of
thinking while being respectful he
wouldn’t have come to where he is now
a former white nationalist a former
white supremists an activist these three
factors have one thing in common and
that’s resistance resistance to thinking
that we may be wrong that our values and
our perspectives may not tell the whole
story and that’s a very valid
conversation to have in our postmodern
world because once we start
understanding what’s influencing our way
of thinking we can start breaking down
those barriers we can start having those
meaningful conversations my solution to
chaos communication is in Kim su ghee
the Japanese art form that symbolizes
that repair requires transformation in
kansui broken pottery the cracks they’re
filled with gold in
silver in chaos communication we fill
these gaps with meaningful dialogue none
of us are immune to the bad in this
world and we have to embrace our
brokenness we have to embrace our
history chaos communication needs to be
embraced in order to transform it and so
in the words of Ernest Hemingway the
world breaks everyone and afterward many
are strong in the broken places thank
you
[Applause]
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