Quotes About Communication

Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant.

Listen for dangerous words.

Like Hitler, the president used the word lies to mean statements of fact not to his liking, and presented journalism as a campaign against himself. The president was on friendlier terms with the internet, his source for erroneous information that he passed on to millions of people.

Take responsibility for what you communicate with others. "What is truth?

Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is part of being a citizen and a responsible member of society. It is also a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down social barriers, and understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

Remember that email is skywriting.

Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

9 Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.

More than half a century ago, the classic novels of totalitarianism warned of the domination of screens, the suppression of books, the narrowing of vocabularies, and the associated difficulties of thought.

The systematic use of nicknames such as "Lyin' Ted" and "Crooked Hillary" displaced certain character traits that might more appropriately have been affixed to the president himself.

If we can avoid doing violence to the minds of unseen others on the internet, others will learn to do the same. And then perhaps our internet traffic will cease to look like one great, bloody accident.

Since in the age of the internet we are all publishers, each of us bears some responsibility for the public's sense of truth. If we are serious about seeking the facts, we can each make a small revolution in the way the internet works. If you are verifying information for yourself, you will not send on fake news to others.

When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework.

Before you deride the "mainstream media," note that it is no longer the mainstream. It is derision that is mainstream and easy, and actual journalism that is edgy and difficult.

Since in the age of the internet we are all publishers, each of us bears some private responsibility for the public's sense of truth.

Make eye contact and small talk.

We do not see the minds that we hurt when we publish falsehoods, but that does not mean we do no harm.

Politicians in our times feed their clichés to television, where even those who wish to disagree repeat them. Television purports to challenge political language by conveying images, but the succession from one frame to another can hinder a sense of resolution. Everything happens fast, but nothing actually happens. Each story on televised news is "breaking" until it is displaced by the next one. So we are hit by wave upon wave but never see the ocean.

Learn from peers in other countries.

Be kind to our language: avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. Make an effort to separate yourself from the internet. Read books.

To find other people incomprehensible is to abandon the search for understanding, and thus to abandon history.

Communication among citizens depends upon equality. At the same time, equality cannot be achieved without facts.

Using technology to transmit political fiction, both at home and abroad, eternity politicians deny truth and seek to reduce life to spectacle and feeling.