During the whole period of lockdown, the philosopher and communicator Emmanuel Tourpe kindly shared with us his ” mini-com-courses ” on this blog.
Here we are today, with this 12th opus, at the end of this series. Emmanuel’s words have allowed us to discover the specificities of visual and oral communication, the lies of communication, tips for communicating better or the dynamics of crowd manipulation.
I can only incline in front of so much knowledge and thank Emmanuel for his generosity.
Mini-com Course N°12
Nothing is more complicated than communication
Nothing is more important than communication
At the end of these ” mini-com courses,” one thing is clear. First of all, communication is not “com” in the sense of the ’80s with cocaine, the happy years of Jacques Attali or the pathetic Beigbeder-style divas. It is not the prerogative of golden boys who dominate a world of easy money with a sudden inspiration or an easy slogan. It’s too serious a matter to be left to advertisers. In addition to its psychological dimensions, it has spiritual roots, spiritual summits, relational mastery, an uncountable commitment to values and, above all, an in-depth understanding of the springs of the human essence.
No one knows the destiny of a message that belongs as much to the one who hears it as to the one who sends it.
Difficult to communicate: everyone knows it is indispensable, no one realises how essential it is, no one knows all the recipes. There are many “tricks” taught by marketing schools or communication faculties to make it easier. Most of them were found in the years between the wars when it was confused with propaganda. But the 1960s showed in every possible case how limited in scope these gizmos and tricks are and how they serve as a minimal framework for communication. When Cultural Studies, the School of Constance, Uses and Gratification Theory, or Umberto Eco discovered almost at the same time the constitutive role of the receiver, reader, listener in communication, one dogma fell: that of a possible mastery of the message by the sender, the medium, advertising. No one knows the destiny of a message that belongs as much to the one who hears it as to the one who transmits it.
This message itself cannot come out of a product at random, in the manner of the Greek sophists who were strong enough to be able to demonstrate everything and its opposite. If fundamentally, communication is history, progress, development, and constant restarting, it cannot be rooted in lies and manipulation. The more it comes from the inner depths, the more it is a manifestation of the soul and the being, the more successful and radiant it is. There is communication only when there is a source from which a flow appears. An announcer who lies does not communicate. He agitates the image, and it will turn against him. Communication is a circle in which the true, the good and the beautiful flow together. When one does not take root in their inner dance, communication is only a superficial foam that fades away as soon as it has settled.
Finally, communication is at the heart of all human activities – much more than politicians, scientists and business leaders think – because it activates the very core of man’s essence: his capacity for communion. We are not juxtaposed individuals, but beings in a relationship, subsisting relationships, which exist only for each other and have at their core only the power to speak and the power to love.
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