Intervention of Antonio Rossin to the Progress Publishing Group Corporation Conference: Education under Cultural Shock: Experiences of a new Futurology, at Moscow on 7th Sept 1994 (updated after Sept. 11 - 2001)

Firstly I thank Professor Avelichev very much for his invitation to this meeting to talk about the Cultural Part of the Family Educative Patterns in Building People's Flexibility.
Well, I will talk to You about the know-how of increasing mind flexibility in people. In time of crisis and cultural shock, mind flexibility is very important to allow humans a further and better level of environmental and social adaptation. I think that now it is time for us to make "flexibility" become a subject of education.

But what do we know exactly about flexibility? To some extent this characteristic of the hu man's personality depends undoubtedly on genetical factors. We could all hope that our own discendants may be those preferred in the current process of evolution: but as a starting point the genetical control of the personality formation in the youth to come seems to be too far in our futurology. Such a control is a very difficult thing, and in addition this matter has revealed itself a total failure in a recent past.

However we need to improve quicker our approach to science and culture, if we want to overcome today's adaptive crisis. We say we trust in human's creativity: really the environment we live in, and our markets, are full today of the products of humans' creativity. But sometimes we use them badly, or we are not able to use them at all. Today's mass is very often too conservative and rigidly closed to science and culture news, thus unable to approach them profitably in order to perform changes. Therefore what must be changed and opened first of all is our current way of approach to science, culture and creativity news. Today's humankind must change their same way of approach to their own natural and social environment. What must be improved, that is humans' flexibility.

But flexibility is not a product of science or creativity, which the people can find ready and buy at the market. Flexibility is a do-it-yourself product; it is a living habit that must begin to live when each one of us begins to live as a child. Flexibility is a working way of one's brain, that is made of curiosity and reflectiveness, that must be free from conditionings, and that must begin to develop itself when one's brain starts to develop itself. Flexibility is a hard work of education.

Well, there are some cultural factors with great relevancy on the formation of one's personality, because they influence up to the imprinting, either rigid conservative "fundamentalist" or flexible and creative, in the development of children's brain frame.
The action of these factors starts from the first years of child's life, so they have above all a parenting pertinence. These formative factors act by an environmental pressure mechanism there where the environment is the same family communication relationship, therefore they characterise the family language patterns. So their knowledge and aware selective adoption opens to the family - to everyone of us - the real educational working space that we need to improve flexibility in people's minds. So our education scientists should consider actively that the first language relationships, the family environment which can bring out flexibility in children, is an educational factor of greatest influence in the progress and the health of our society.

From my studies on the family communication relationship, I point out two educative patterns which depend on the general structure of language relationships. The roles and the functions of this general structure, which is at the basis of any communication relationship, are show in the following figure 1.

Fig. 1: Functions and Roles of Language Relationships

The use of the current language acknowledges 4 functions:
a - to GIVE
b - to HAVE
c - Consent ( + ) as relative to that which is already known - or already said - in that context of collective culture;
d - Criticism ( - ) as relative to the former role of Consent.

The possible roles of who takes part in any language relationship are:
1 - Using language to Give critically;
2 - or to Give consensually;
3 - or to Have consensually;
4 - or to Have critically.
= In the upper half of the chart ("to Give" level) the one who speaks can produce either a critical (1) or a consensual message (2) as regards what has been already stated in one's collectivity.
= In the lower half of the chart ("to Have level) the message receiver can be either rigidly dependent (3), or flexible and capable of choosing critically (4), as regards what is stated from the to GIVE role of who speaks .
= To make possible criticism and choosing, the role (4) requests the presence at least of two speakers (1 and 2) in the to GIVE role.

(The 0 role in the chart -- i.e., the silence -- has not been considered)

The structure of all language relationships, as well as every structure of human communication relationship, foresees indeed the roles and the relations that bind these roles, and the functions of these roles and of their relationship, regarding the nature of what is issued in each family relationship practice, as shown in the chart of Figure 1. From this chart some considerations can be made at once:

I° If there has to be a communication between two roles, thus in a to GIVE/to HAVE vertical relationship, there must be Consent between them, otherwise no communication can exist.

II° When in a language context there are two speakers, the one in the role (2) and the other in the role (1), no consent can exist between them. Theirs is a horizontal relation, in which one of them occupies the role (2) thus speaking a "positive" (+) language, while the other occupies the dialectical role (1), thus speaking as regards the first, or as regards what has been already said in that cultural context, a "negative" (-) language.

III° The two speakers (2) and (1), as they speak, perform both the (to GIVE) role. Neither of them is in a role of (to HAVE), of accepting messages from, and of giving consent to, the other.
That any communication may exist in such a dialectical "thesis-antithesis context, there must be a third person who occupies the (to HAVE) role, thereby in the "synthesis" position.

IV° In this last case, if this third person had a flexible personality (4), she has the lucky chance of choosing between (1) and (2).
If this third person had instead a rigid dependent personality (3), and a leader to follow, she will fall down into fundamentalism; with no leader, she is bound to fall into a behavioural shock.

Now we have elements enough to make the structure of the family educative patterns clear. This logical structure, because it bases itself on the communication relations, repeats substantially the structure of language relations shown in the above figure 1, as we can see in the following figure 2.

Fig. 2: Logical Structure of Family Communication Relationships

The Family is an assistence/dependence parents/child relationship, on the objective axis of the chart. In this relation the parents FP and FM, because they are the assistence, occupy both the to GIVE role. The child FF, because she is who depends, occupies the to HAVE role.

The objective axis is formed by the Family assistence/dependence relationship, in which the child FF demands (to HAVE) family values - food and knowledge enclosed - from the parents FP and FM. The last, joined together, answer and give family values from the (to GIVE) role on the vertical axis to FF.
The (to GIVE)/(to HAVE) relation is always a vertical relation.

The subjective axis is formed by the horizontal relationship of the eventual subjective differences of each of the two parents.
The dialogue relationship between the two parents can show (to GIVE) to the child either the comparison (criticism) of both parents' eventual differences in opinion, or no difference (consent). This criticism~consent difference opens to the possible choice between two educative family models, according to either the consent or the criticism function in the role (to GIVE) of the family leadership, as shown in the charts of fig.3 and 4+5 below.

Fig. 3: the Family Educative Pattern "Subjective Practice"

Within the Consend-based education model, the demand for consent in the family dialogues is strong, thus each one of the family members is due to give one's own consent on the statements made by the dominant parent.
Both the relationship between the two parents FP and FM, and that between the parents FP + FM and the child FF can be consensual only.
This family practice starts from a subjective demand by the dominant parent from the subjective role FP+FM to the objective role FF.
The family value given to FF is made dogmatical because it is doubled by the joined consent by the leadership FP+FM, and it allows no critical choice.

The relational family value that passes in this pattern is always consent; the assistence/dependence relation starts after a demand of the Giver who assists.
The child FF is bound to join-in to the family framework with her consent, in order to maintain her family relation (on which she is always really dependent).
In time such an environmental pressure conditions FF to search only for the symbols of the social leadership's consent from her surrounding environment.
Then FF will possess - and consume - every thing of her environment that may symbolizes her the social authority's consent, to whose dependence he has been conditioned.

The above Figure 3 shows the traditional family pattern, as characterized by a strong and rigid demand of consent in the family relationships framework. There the dominant parent imposes his (supposing he is the father) first of all in his language relationships with the other parent, who is bound to give consent and to repress her (supposing she is the mother, but it may be the reverse as well) own personality. Then the two parents, joined together in the up position of family leadership in their child's view, impose their authority to the latter, who in her turn is bound to give her consent and to repress her own personality as well, if only she wanted to secur her vital assistence/dependence relationship within her family.

This family pattern, that I call Subjective Practice because it starts after a FP's or FM's demand from the subjective axis, is therefore based on the "Principle of Authority" and allows the child only one behavioural line: that on which the joined consent of both parents converges, so making it become fundamental. This believing-behaving line is shown as the only and exact one to the child, as it admits no variant. The child is compelled to behave by learning the recognition and the obedience of the only behavioural line on which the family authority applies its authoritarian, dogmatically fundamentalist, consent. Hence the child learns to reject any other logical variant, even with a greater adaptive power, as soon as she recognizes it is outside the leadership consent, thus wrong - or evil. This way, from family to society, this "human of tomorrow" will behave by following the leadership's consent as the only exact and positive one, and will ignore and reject any possibility of "try and err" learning -- as how the fundamentalist people always do as their first rule.

The second family pattern (figure 4) foresees no rigid demand of consent in family communication relationships, thus no environmental pressure conditioning the child to comply with the "Principle of Authority" in order to perform her believing and behavioural procedures. By this model each one of the two parents must express one's own opinion within the family dialogues, so allowing the child a chance for comparison and choice. In this space the child learns how to perform her believing and behavioural lines, not by rigidly following the "principle of authority", but by acting a process of "try and err" learning, so allowing the utmost behavioural chances, as well as maximum flexibility and adaptive power, to people.

Fig. 4: the Family educative model "Objective practice"

This second family education model focuses on practices of family communication being started after a demand from the child FF, on the objective axis. Because it starts after the demand of the child that is the "object" of the practice, from his to HAVE role as shown in the above figure 4, I call it "Objective Practice".

There is no rigid demand of consent in the family dialogues, and each one of the family members can propose one's own opinions and statements to be discussed in the family relationship. The relationship between the two parents FP and FM in the (to Give) role is made with comparison, and the family values shown downwards to FF are two, in whose comparison the latter can choose consciously, autonomously and responsibly.

Because the assistence/dependence relationhip starts after a conscious demand of the child FF, the latter can maintain her family membership without being bound to always sub her consent to the family authority, thus she will learn autonomy and flexibility.

There will be no environmental pressure and no conditionings on FF to make her become fundamentally dependent on the symbols of the social leadership's consent: then FF will possess (and consume) the things of her environment only for their real substance and usefulness, not for their value as the authority's symbols.

The pattern of family communication based on dialogue and comparison between the parents opens the problem of the "negative" language, as explained in Figure 5 below.
Clearly, in current family educative relationship, as well as in any kind of communication relationship, authoritarianism looks bound to a "positive only" function and use of one's language. That is, any one who speaks "consent" in a same communication context - be this one the other parent as in the family, or anybody else as in the societal context- adds power to this authoritarianism until making it become dogmatic fundamentalism. Vice versa, the presence in the same communication context also of the function and the use of "negative language", takes off the authoritarian power from that relationship, taking instead greater importance to the dialectic comparison, to "try and erry" learning, to behavioural flexibility. The difference I have shown between the family educative patterns Subjective Practice (figure 3) and Objective Practice (figures 4 and 5), is exactly the same.

In all family practices indeed, what passes from the parents (to GIVE) to the child (to HAVE) is undoubtedly an objective value. But whenever one parent speaks to FF, one's talk is never the objective value: one's talk is only that value expressed in "positive" words. And if the second parent speaks about the same value, but to a certain extent she expresses some difference to that of the first, she only expresses the same value in "negative" words. What must be clear, it is that if one parent speaks, and tells about the value of any thing, he simply talks about that thing in "positive" language. And if the other parent to some extent speaks differently about the same thing, he talks about that same thing to the same extent in "negative" language. So just this same extent - if sensible - will open for the child FF the space of divergence where the latter can choose between the positive language of the first parent FP and the negative language of the second parent FM. The extent of this divergence constitutes the learning place where the child FF can try and err, and put into action the expressions of her autonomy and creativity, because all this happens inside the family relationship framework.

Fig. 5: Family Communication and the Negative Language

On the Objective Axis there are placed all the family values which go from the family leadership (to GIVE) to the child (to HAVE). On the Subjective Axis it is placed the dialogue relationship between the parents FP and FM.

When a parent (FP) expresses a value, it means that he has expressed this value in a positive language (+). If the other parent (FM) expresses an opinion being different to some extent from the first, it means that he has expressed the same value as FP, but to some extent in a negative language (-).

The angle alpha is given by the difference and dialectical comparison between the parents FP (+) and FM (-), in their peer-to-peer subjective relation. This angle alpha opens at FF's disposal a real place where the child can learn and behave "try and err" her autonomy and flexibility.

According to "objective practice", the family leadership starts no joined demand for consent towards FF. This family practice is always started by a conscious and reponsible demand by the child, from her objective role of FF upwards to the subjective role of FP+FM family leadership.

Vice versa the "subjective practice" embodies in children, from family to society, that rigid dependence on authority-given dogmas which is sadly known as fundamentalism.
Really, in the evidence of everybody's experience, the family educative model shown in the above figure 3 as Subjective Practice could bring up people more rigid and conservative, incapable of adaptative flexibility, exposed to great cultural shocks in times of great social changes.

The "Dialectic Education" family model I've shown in figure 4 and 5 above as Objective Practice, might vice versa be able to bring up people more flexible, able to learn by trial and error, more suitable to face successfully the changes in behaviours and adaptation that the solution of today's environmental and social crisis is expecting by us, at the beginning of Third Millennium.

Well, the educative pattern shown as "Objective Practice" seems however to be the more suitable to the aims of Science. This means that all of us are called to agree consciously with the concept of "Negative Language". Its adoption in the communication relationships with the educative aims, means that we must use the verbal language in our family educative practice the same way as the Arabs used the counting language when - a two thousand years ago - they discovered the negative numbers, thus opening a main road to the progress of Culture and Science.

Really, one thing is speaking about Science, about the laws that rule the world of Nature: such speeches but request a severely positive language that scientists are able to do with great authority, and such a positive and authoritative language is specially good in books and in dialogues between other scientists. But another thing is to speak to make "the people in the street" become more conscious and flexible, suitable for changes. Some scientists should remember that when they speak, even if they tell the absolute truth, their language is not "the same truth" made language that is speaking itself: "the map is not the territory", in Korzybskian terms.
They are simply talking "truth" in positive language, while the relatively "negative" language is equally indispensable to allow scientifical verifying, thus knowledge and flexibility, to people. So many speakers should account more carefully that the effectiveness of communication is not only a function of the speaker, but also of the public who listens to, and that this communication value is a function more of the listener's flexibility than of the speaker's authoritativeness.

On the other hand, Science seems to reject scientifically in itself the Principle of Authority, which is only bound to a "positive" use of language. Science proceeds by trial and error, not by authority only, and its statements must always be denied - thus expressed in "negative" language - if we want to continue its proceeding. And now, if we want more flexibility in people to get rid of the shock of today's crisis, and of rising fundamentalism, our Culture must overcome the rigidity and the conservativeness of the Principle of Authority and the "positive" only use of language. Perhaps the proposed overcoming can be performed if we were able to adopt this new convention of language, by using scientifically the cultural-educative function of the "negative" one.

But in this case this new convention must necessarily start from the first place where the educative language begins to build more flexibility into the minds of the people of tomorrow. This starting point is the family educative pattern, in which all of us are called to make a more proper and conscious use of our language in the earliest education of our children.
I hope we will be able to show this new know-how to our families sooner than later, maybe even in time.

Antonio Rossin

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