7fi. Language meta model
Joseph O’Connor and John Seymour take the deconstruction of language even further in their book ‘Introducing Neuro Linguistic Programming, The New Psychology of Personal Excellence’.
In the practice of intellectual self-defense their Meta Model reconnects language with experience, and can be used for gathering information, clarifying meanings, identifying limitations and opening up choices. This is an extremely powerful model for revealing the underlying ‘wetiko’ patterns in people’s preconceived and unexamined ideologies.
Challenge 1. Deletions, nouns: Unspecified noun eg Who or what specifically…?
Examples: ‘They are out to get me.’ ‘Who is?’
‘It’s a matter of opinion?’ ‘What is?’
‘The neighbourhood has been ruined.’ ‘Who ruined it, how, when, why?’
‘If you leave chocolate around, people eat it.’ ‘Which people, why?’
Challenge 2. Deletions, verbs: Unspecified verb eg Who or what specifically…? How specifically is this happening?
Examples: ‘He travelled to Paris.’ ‘How did he travel?’
‘She hurt herself.’ ‘How did she hurt herself?’
‘I am trying to remember it.’ ‘How are you trying to remember it?’
‘What specifically are you trying to remember anyway?’
Challenge 3. Comparison: ‘Compared with what?’
Examples: ‘New improved Fluffo washing powder is better.’ ‘Better than what?’
‘I handled that meeting badly.’ ‘Compared with what?’
Challenge 4. Judgement: Who says ..?
Examples: ‘I am a selfish person’. ‘Who says you are a selfish person?’
‘I do.’ ‘By what standard do you judge yourself to be..?’
Challenge 4. Nominalisation
How is this being done? Who is nominalising about what, and how are they doing it?
Description: When a verb describing an ongoing process has been turned into a noun.
eg if a noun cannot be touched, tasted, smelt, seen or heard, it is a nominalisation.
Example: Teaching and discipline, applied with respect and firmness are essentials in the process of education.
Challenge 5. Generalisations
- Modal operator of possibility: What prevents you..?
Description: Words which set limits governed by unspoken rules,
Example: ‘cannot’ ‘must not’. They define what is considered possible.
- Modal operator of necessity: What would happen if you did/didn’t’..?
Description: Involving a need, there is a rule of conduct operating but not explicit.
Example: ‘I must always put other people first.’ ‘What would happen if you didn’t?’
‘You shouldn’t talk to those people.’ ‘What would happen if you did?’
3.Universal quantifier Always? Never? Everyone?
Description: Taking a few instances as representing the whole group.
Example: Pop music is rubbish. All generalisations are wrong. Actors are interesting people.
Challenge 6. Distortions
- Complex equivalence. How does this mean that?
Description: Statements linked in such a way they are taken to mean the same thing.
People may generalise their own experience to include everyone and forget that others think in different ways.
Example: ‘You are not smiling…you are not enjoying yourself.’
‘If you don’t look at me when I’m talking to you, then you are not paying attention.’
- Presupposition. What leads you to believe that..?
Description: Basic assumptions which limit choice.
Example: ‘Are you going to wear your green pyjamas or the red ones to go to bed?
‘What leads you to believe I am going to bed?’
‘When you get smart, you’ll understand this.’
‘Why don’t you smile more?’
- Cause and effect: How exactly does that make this happen?
Description: Assumptions that one thing causes another, eg ‘You made me do it’(Eric Berne)
Examples: ‘You made me feel angry.’ ‘The weather gets me down.’ ‘ You bore me.’
- Mind Reading: How do you know..?
Description: Presuming to know how another feels.
Example: ‘I could tell she didn’t like the present I gave her.’
‘He was angry but he wouldn’t admit it.’
Also mirrors: ‘If you cared for me you would know what I wanted.’
‘Can’t you see how I feel?’
‘You should know that I like that.’
“Which meta-model violation you challenge will depend on the context of the communication and your outcome. Consider the following sentence.
‘Why don’t these awful people stop always trying to help me, it makes me even angrier;
‘I know I should keep my temper, but I can’t.’
This contains mind reading and presupposition (they are trying to annoy me), cause and effect (makes), universal quantifiers (always), judgements (awful), comparisons (angrier), modal operators of possibility and necessity (should, can’t), unspecified verbs (trying and help), nominalisation (temper), and unspecified nouns (people, it).
Parliament Must Die contains quotes from: A. Greenburg, M.D._Abraham Maslow_Albert Einstein _Alnoor Ladha_Andrew Gwynne _Anneke Lucas_Arthur Koestler _Arundhati Roy_Asgeir Jonsson _Barbara Max Paul Hubbard_Bertrand Russell _Bill Mollison _Buckminster Fuller_Calcida Jethá _Caroline Lucas_Charles the Great_Chief Arvol Looking Horse _Christopher Ryan_Copernicus_Daniel Christian Wahl_Daniel Pinchbeck_Darwin_David Edwards_David Holmgren _David Icke_Dieter Duhm_Donald Worster_Donnachadh McCarthy_Doreen Massey_Doris Lessing_Dr A Bartlett Giamatti _Dr Claire Wordley_Dr Jay Cullen_Dr Kathy Sykes _Dresden James_E C Lindeman_Eckhart Tolle_Edgar Cayce _Edward Snowden _Ethan C Roland _Ewen MacAskill_Galileo_Galtang and Ruge _George Monbiot_Gerald Heard _God in Genesis_Greta Thunberg_Gudrun Johnsen _Guido Dalla Casa _Gustave Le Bon_Guy Fawkes _Henry Cloud _Henryk Skolomowski_Isaac Cordal _J Eliot_Jack D Forbes_Jack Forbes_James Gordon M.D._James Lovelock _Jeremy Lent_Jeremy Rifkin_John Cleese _John Hammell_John Hilary_John Trudell_Jon Stone_Jonathan Bartley_Julian Assange_Karl Marx _Karlos Kukuburra_Ken Ward _Lee Williams _Leonard Higgins_Lierre Keith _Lord Strasburger_M Knowles_Maddy Harland _Marianne Williamson_Mark Boyle_Martin Kirk_Martin Winiecki_Masanobu Fukuoka _Matthieu Ricard_Mogens Herman Hansen _Nafeez Ahmed _Nanice Ellis_Neil Dawe_Nikola Tesla_Noam Chomsky_Olafur Hauksson _Osho_Paul Hawken_Paul Levy_Peter Joseph_Peter Macfadyen_Pope Francis_President Franklin Roosevelt _Rabindranath Tagore _Rene Descartes _Russell Brand_Safa Motesharrei _Seyyed Hossein Nasr_Sigmund Fraud_Silas Titus _Simon Mitchell_Sir David Attenborough_Sir Isaac Newton_Sir Joshua Stamp_Skip Sanders _Steve Kent _Sting_Terrence Mckenna_The Dalai Lama _Thomas Berry_Tom McKay_Tyler Durden_Walter Bradford Cannon_Wendell Berry_William Derham_Yaneer Bar-Yam
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