Organorama 5/3 [antikvár]

Editori a/ No te. Communication, an "in" word In his article "The handicapped are people too" the author suggests that a mentally handicapped child can only develop satisfactorily if parents and advisers are prepared to think in terms of the "backward" world which their pupil inhabits. It seems so obvious, almost a rule-of-thumb for modern behavioral sciences, that when going to meet our fellow humán beings we must be armed with an understanding of their psyche. Theoretically speaking we are easily convinced of the necessity of first entering into the other's psyche and secondly achieving optimál communication. Unfortunately it is almost the same with the word "communication" as with fashionable words from the past. Using it is commensurate with the need felt for realizing the conceptual significance, but in spite of the high flight of psychology and sociology we have but moderately succeeded in creating a viable society in which the concept genuine communication is more than a dream. The cause of this discrepancy between knowledge and deed can perhaps be found in our desperate fear of taking the initiative in approaching someone on the basis of thinking in terms of the other's conceptual framework. We still see a great risk in a spontaneous and understanding approach because we expect in advance to be exploited by our "opponent". This fear is not ill-founded. Too often our empathy for the other person is construed as sentimental nonsense and someone with a "down-to-earth" attitűdé profits from our goodwill. The fact that we are more readily disposed to make ourselves accessible to the mentái needs and potencies of the mentally handicapped can probably be explained by the absence of the fear of inherent "reprisals". How long must it be before we reward our lack of communication with self-reproach ?