This is http://www.essayz.com/a9010291.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %MIXED SIGNALS LACK INTEGRITY COHERENCE COMMUNICATE 901029 Communications by individuals and communities which give mixed signals are communications which lack integrity and lead to disintegration. It is dangerous when an overt message is communicated in a way which inserts between the "lines" of the overt message a tacit indication that a contradictory message is what is really meant. It is dangerous when a community overtly affirms one thing and by neglect indicates that it really does not mean what it overtly affirms; the neglect may be taken to mean that the community tacitly believes something which is a contradiction of what it overtly affirms. Neglect may take the form of never saying things which logically would go with what is overtly affirmed. "Never saying" may take the form of never affirming by formal public ceremony, never treating with respect and honor any private behavior which is consistent with the overt affirmation, usually showing respect to people who behave in ways which are contradictory to the overt affirmations, etc. Young people are not stupid, and pick up the overall meaning of the behavior of a community, even when it is contradictory to the overtly given messages. Mixed signals often originate in the collusive behaviors o the community's leading addicts and their supportive codependents. Collusions cannot do their work through overt communications; for overt communications would make the dishonesty of the collusions open for honest inspection. Collusions must communicate their messages covertly, implicitly, tacitly, so to speak "between the lines" of the overt messages which may contradict the collusive message. In this way the collusive message may get through and undermine the overt message's meaning. When we receive mixed signals we will do well to seek to understand the motivations which are generating the mixed signals. There may be some systematic process which occasions them. Systematic neglect which is incoherent with overt communications is a clear sign that there is a lack of integrity in the communicators. Wise people will take note of such a lack of integrity and behave appropriately in the light of that observation. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================