assumptions of stupidity: talking down a ten-foot pole

I didn’t question it the first time I was told to talk to adults at a fifth grade level. That was in the advanced speech class that I took in undergraduate school. The class was designed as a preparation for our future preaching or teaching ministry. The professor told us to speak at a fifth grade level, especially in the area of vocabulary. The rationalization was that most people have about a fifth grade vocabulary and prefer to hear simple speech. He also suggested that we repeat our points a few times because, in our modern culture, people have short attention spans because they are used to copious stimulation and television. His description of the people we would be speaking to gave me the mental picture of a bunch of poorly educated people with severe ADHD who spend the week watching sitcoms and trying not to think too much.

I’d never heard anyone speak that way until I went to a church where the pastor repeated absolutely everything he said three times. I know I wasn’t the only one who found that a little annoying. He was a good speaker, though.

Then at work, one of our managers gave me some simple instructions, but instead of saying them once, he said them three times, very slowly. I stood there with a blank look on my face, not because I was mentally handicapped, but because I had understood the instructions the first time he said them, and they were so simple that I definitely wouldn’t have forgotten them. Finally he gave the customary, “Ooookaayyyy?” I walked off in a daze, frantically worrying that I must look autistic or somehow extremely slow and stupid. I felt a little better after someone else told me that the same manager treats her the same way. In fact, we were both glad that we weren’t the only ones treated like mentally handicapped people.

I started to wonder if the managers were I work are taught to talk to us as if we have the brains of children just like my speech class professor taught us to preach or teach as if everyone in the congregation had the education and mental capacity of a fifth grader. Wouldn’t it be better to assume that people are at least reasonably intelligent instead of automatically talking down to them? After all, I don’t know of anyone other than slightly autistic children or mentally handicapped adults who would need a simple instruction repeated three times, very slowly. And many people who go to church are educated and intelligent enough to at least take a few high-school level vocabulary words and to hear what the pastor said the first time (or maybe the second time if they are extremely fatigued or stressed). After all, it’s insulting to be talked down to, and I think that something is wrong with assuming that other people are so much stupider than you that you have to talk down to them.

webcam snapshots

Self-Esteem vs. Ego

I just finished a great book: You Can Read Anyone by David J. Lieberman, Ph.D. In this book, Lieberman devotes several chapters to the topic of self-esteem and ego, along with factors such as interest, confidence, mood, and humility. He goes into more detail, but basically defined self-esteem as our sense of self-worth, and equated ego with arrogance and insecurity.

The interplay of self-esteem and ego produces three types of people:

1. A person with high self-esteem cannot have a big ego. They are the ones who generally treat others the best, make good decisions, and are humble enough to recognize when they've made a mistake.

2. A person can have low self-esteem and a big ego. In this case, that person will generally act arrogantly, get irritated easily, have difficulty in seeing the needs of other people, and need to feel better than others by finding fault with them in order to feel good. This type of person tends to direct negative feelings outward, usually in anger.

3. A person can have low self-esteem and a diminished ego. These people tend to be "doormats" who will cater to other people's wishes out of the fear of being disliked. This can appear like humility, but it is not. This type of person tends to direct negative feelings inward, and tends to be withdrawn or introverted.

The same person can fluctuate between the second and third type depending on mood and other factors.

I found the following paragraph from p. 131, also about self-confidence and ego, to be very interesting:

"The more engaged in life you are, the more meaningful and thus pleasurable your experiences will be. The more you withdraw into temporary comfort or pursue illusions driven by the ego, the less pleasurable life becomes. In this state, you sometimes feel productive, but deep down inside recognize that your pursuits are not fulfilling. No matter how much effort you expend, the satisfaction is fleeting because the end objective is not meaningful. Being comfortable and having fun are not enough; our soul gnaws at us, not just to do more, but also to become something more."

I was fascinated by the descriptions of the three types of people in this book, as well as the preceding statement, because I've observed it in real life, but didn't understand exactly how it all worked. Self-esteem is extremely important if you want to be humble, treat others well, make good decisions, and pursue something that will be fulfilling instead of temporarily satisfying.