Conditions for Communication

We are all individuals separated from one another, needing to relate to live. One separated individual needs to meet with another separated individual in order to communicate and live together. Our incompleteness and  separateness  are in some way overcome and  we survive. Aristotle said  we are  incomplete human beings. and build communities to overcome this incompleteness which at  the same time gives rise to conflict and  collisions.

Consequently, we have to learn how to live together. A professor writes in our  diocesan bulletin on what this requires of us. Living together requires art, the ability to communicate with others. There are certain conditions necessary to communicate, and he introduces them to the readers.

Humans are similar and at the same time different. We have a need to  communicate, and the similarity and differences make  communication possible. If we were all the same there would be  nothing to communicate: the more we are the same the less need to communicate. On the other hand, if we were different in everything and even in the  means of speaking, there would be no possibility of communicating. There would be no way of linking ourselves together. The more different makes the communication more difficult. Joining together what  is similar to what is different allows us to communicate.

Chronic absence of communication in our  society can be traced, he says to one of the causes we have listed. We still have the emphasis on blood relationships, provincialism, school ties; this cronyism is part of our society. The same blood, the same village, the same school does not allow for the different others to enter our circle. This is one of the  big problems in society and the breakdown of communication.

On the other hand,  society  emphasizes  individuality, creativity. international marriages, the differences when they are stressed we have the breakdown of communication. We have in the book Men are from Mars and Women from Venus an example of this thinking. Men and women begin to have problems in their relationship  when we stress the differences. The magic of love draws the two together in their differences and they marry, but when the magic of love disappears the relationship and communication breakdown. This is when they walk the path of thorns,  which is more difficult than death. Here one has to work to meet the differences of the other and respond correctly; this requires the practice of virtue.

He concludes his article with the example of a flower garden. We have a large number of different flowers in the garden. These are different but they all come from the same earth. When we have the joining together in this fashion of  the same and the different, we have something beautiful, and in our lives, the conditions necessary  for communication that will allow the  community to express beauty.